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WOOD FOLK 
AT SCHOOL! 



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WILLIAM J LONG 




Class _ 
Book.__ _i_4_ 
Copyright N°_. 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Wood Folk at School 







"THERE AT A TURN IN THE PATH, NOT TEN YARDS 
AHEAD, STOOD A HUGE BEAR." See Page 157 



WOOD FOLK AT SCHOOL 



BY 



WILLIAM J. LONG 



WOOD FOLK SERIES 
BOOK FOUR 



Boston, U.S.A., and London 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

2TI)e atfoenaettm |Jtesis 

1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS. 


Two Copies 


Received 


MAY 


5 


1903 


Copyi 
CLASS 


ighl 

r- 


Lr,.ry 
XXq. No. 


5" *~ l 

COPY 


K <5 



Entered at Stationers' Hall 



Copyright, 1902, 1903 
By WILLIAM J. LONG 



all rights reserved 






PREFACE 

TT may surprise many, whose knowledge of wild animals is 
-*- gained from rare, fleeting glimpses of frightened hoof or 
wing in the woods, to consider that there can be such a thing 
as a school for the Wood Folk ; or that instruction has any 
place in the life of the wild things. Nevertheless it is prob- 
ably true that education among the higher order of animals 
has its distinct place and value. Their knowledge, however 
simple, is still the result of three factors : instinct, training, 
and experience. Instinct only begins the work ; the mother's 
training develops and supplements the instinct ; and contact 
with the world, with its sudden dangers and unknown forces, 
finishes the process. 

For many years the writer has been watching animals and 
recording his observations with the idea of determining, if 
possible, which of these three is the governing factor in the 
animal's life. Some of the results of this study were pub- 
lished last year in a book called " School of the Woods," 
which consisted of certain studies of animals from life, and 
certain theories in the form of essays to account for what the 
writer's eyes had seen and his own ears heard in the great 
wilderness among the animals. 



vi Preface 

A school reader is no place for theories ; therefore that 
part of the book is not given here. The animal studies alone 
are reproduced in answer to the requests from many teachers 
that these be added to the Wood Folk books. From these 
the reader can form his own conclusions as to the relative 
importance of instinct and training, if he will. But there is 
another and a better way open : watch the purple martins for 
a few days when the young birds first leave the house ; find 
a crow's nest, and watch secretly while the old birds are 
teaching their little ones to fly ; follow a fox, or any other 
wild mother-animal, patiently as she leaves the den and leads 
the cubs out into the world of unknown sights and sounds 
and smells, — and you will learn more in a week of what 
education means to the animals than anybody's theories can 
ever teach you. 

These are largely studies of individual animals and birds. 
They do not attempt to give the habits of a class or species, 
for the animals of the same class are alike only in a general 
way ; they differ in interest and intelligence quite as widely 
as men and women of the same class, if you but watch them 
closely enough. The names here given are those of the 
Milicete Indians, as nearly as I can remember them ; and the 
incidents have all passed under my own eyes and were 
recorded in the woods, from my tent or canoe, just as I 
saw them. WILLIAM J. LONG. 

Stamford, Conn., March, 1903. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

What the Fawns must know i 

A Cry in the Night n 

ISMAQUES THE FlSHHAWK 3 1 

A School for Little Fishermen 48 

When you meet a Bear 58 

Quoskh the Keen Eyed 75 

Unk Wunk the Porcupine in 

A Lazy Fellow's Fun . . 124 

The Partridges' Roll Call . 134 

Umquenawis the Mighty 151 

At the Sound of the Trumpet 175 

Glossary of Indian Names 187 



FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 

" There at a Turn in the Path, not Ten Yards ahead, 

STOOD A HUGE BEAR" . . . . . Frontispiece 

Facing page 

" The White Flag showing like a Beacon Light as she 

jumped away " 9 

" Her Eyes all ablaze with th-e Wonder of the Light " 24 
" Presently they began to swoop fiercely at some 

Animal " 43 

"Gripping his Fish and pip-pipping his Exultation" . 53 
" A Dozen Times the Fisher jumped, filling the Air 

with Feathers" . .104 

" Bothers and irritates the Porcupine by flipping Earth 

at him " 118 

"They would turn their Heads and listen intently" 145 
" Plunging like a Great Engine through Underbrush 

and over Windfalls" 152 

" A Mighty Spring of his Crouching Haunches finished 

the Work " . . . . . . . . .183 



Cm^~~Urf>at lf>e Faa)ns 




nour^ 



O this day it is hard to under- 
stand how any eyes could have 
found them, they were so per- 
fectly hidden. I was following a little brook, which 
led me by its singing to a deep dingle in the very 
heart of the big woods. A great fallen tree lay 
across my path and made a bridge over the stream. 
Now, bridges are for crossing ; that is plain to even 
the least of the wood folk; so I sat down on the 
mossy trunk to see who my neighbors might be, and 
what little feet were passing on the King's highway. 
Here, beside me, are claw marks in the moldy bark. 
Only a bear could leave that deep, strong imprint. 
And see ! there is where the moss slipped and broke 
beneath his weight. A restless tramp is Mooween, 
who scatters his records over forty miles of hillside 
on a summer day, when his lazy mood happens to 
leave him for a season. Here, on the other side, are 
the bronze-green petals of a spruce cone, chips from 



2 Wood Folk at School 

a squirrels workshop, scattered as if Meeko had 
brushed them hastily from his yellow apron when 
he rushed out to see Mooween as he passed. There, 
beyond, is a mink sign, plain as daylight, where Che- 
okhes sat down a little while after his breakfast of 
frogs. And here, clinging to a stub, touching my 
elbow as I sit with heels dangling idly over the lazy 
brook, is a crinkly yellow hair, which tells me that 
Eleemos the Sly One, as Simmo calls him, hates to 
wet his feet and so uses a fallen tree or a stone in 
the brook for a bridge, like his. brother fox of the 
settlements. 

Just in front of me was another fallen tree, lying 
alongside the stream in such a way that no animal 
more dangerous than a roving mink would ever think 
of using it. Under its roots, away from the brook, 
was a hidden and roomy little house with hemlock 
tips drooping over its doorway for a curtain. " A 
pretty place for a den," I thought ; " for no one could 
ever find you there." Then, as if to contradict me, a 
stray sunbeam found the spot and sent curious bright 
glintings of sheen and shadow dancing and playing 
under the fallen roots and trunk. " Beautiful ! " I 
cried, as the light fell on the brown mold and flecked 
it with white and yellow. The sunbeam went away 
again, but seemed to leave its brightness behind it; 



What the Fawns Must Know 3 

for there were still the gold-brown mold under the 
roots and the flecks of white and yellow. I stooped 
down to see it better ; I reached in my hand — then 
the brown mold changed suddenly to softest fur ; the 
glintings of white and yellow were the dappled sides 
of two little fawns, lying there very stilL and fright- 
ened, just where their mother had hidden them when 
she went away. 

They were but a few days old when I found them. 
Each had on his little Joseph's coat; and each, I 
think, must have had also a magic cloak somew 7 here 
about him ; for he had only to lie down anywhere to 
become invisible. The curious markings, like the 
play of light and shadow through the leaves, hid the 
little owners perfectly so long as they held themselves 
still and let the sunbeams dance over them. Their 
beautiful heads were a study for an artist, — delicate, 
graceful, exquisitely colored. And their great soft 
eyes had a questioning innocence, as they met yours, 
which went straight to your heart and made you 
claim the beautiful creatures for your own instantly. 
Indeed, there is nothing in all the woods that so takes 
your heart by storm as the face of a little fawn. 

They were timid at first, lying close without motion 
of any kind. The instinct of obedience — the first 
and strongest instinct of every creature born into this 



4 Wood Folk at School 

world — kept them loyal to the mother's command to 
stay where they were and be still till she came back. 
So even after the hemlock curtain was brushed aside, 
and my eyes saw and my hand touched them, they 
kept their heads flat to the ground and pretended that 
they were only parts of the brown forest floor, and 
that the spots on their bright coats were but flecks 
of summer sunshine. 

I felt then that I was an intruder ; that I ought to 
go straight away and leave them ; but the little things 
were too beautiful, lying there in their wonderful old 
den, with fear and wonder and questionings dancing 
in their soft eyes as they turned them back at me like 
a mischievous child playing peekaboo. It is a tribute 
to our higher nature that one cannot see a beautiful 
thing anywhere without wanting to draw near, to see, 
to touch, to possess it. And here was beauty such 
as one rarely finds, and, though I was an intruder, I 
could not go away. 

The hand that touched the little wild things brought 
no sense of danger with it. It searched out the spots 
behind their velvet ears where they love to be rubbed ; 
it wandered down over their backs with a little wavy 
caress in its motion ; it curled its palm up softly under 
their moist muzzles and brought their tongues out 
instantly for the faint suggestion of salt that was in 



What the Fawns Must Know 5 

it. Suddenly their heads came up. All deception 
was over now. They had forgotten their hiding, their 
first lesson; they turned and looked at me full with 
their great, innocent, questioning eyes. It was won- 
derful ; I was undone. One must give his life, if 
need be, to defend the little things after they had 
looked at him just once like that. 

When I rose at last, after petting them to my heart's 
content, they staggered up to their feet and came out 
of their house. Their mother had told them to stay ; 
but here was another big, kind animal, evidently, whom 
they might safely trust. " Take the gifts the gods 
provide thee " was the thought in their little heads ; 
and the salty taste in their tongues' ends, when they 
licked my hand, was the nicest thing they had ever 
known. As I turned away they ran after me, with a 
plaintive little cry to bring me back. When I stopped 
they came close, nestling against me, one on either side, 
and lifted their heads to be petted and rubbed again. 
• Standing so, all eagerness and wonder, they were 
a perfect study in first impressions of the world. 
Their ears had already caught the deer trick of 
twitching nervously and making trumpets at every 
sound. A leaf rustled, a twig broke, the brook's 
song swelled as a floating stick jammed in the 
current, and instantly the fawns were all alert. Eyes, 



6 Wood Folk at School 

ears, noses questioned the phenomenon. Then they 
would raise their eyes slowly to mine. " This is a 
wonderful world. This big wood is full of music. 
We know so little ; please tell us all about it," — that 
is what the beautiful eyes were saying as they lifted 
up to mine, full of innocence and delight at the joy 
of living. Then the hands that rested fondly, one on 
either soft neck, moved down from their ears with 
a caressing sweep and brought up under their moist 
muzzles. Instantly the wood and its music vanished; 
the questions ran away out of their eyes. Their eager 
tongues were out, and all the unknown sounds were 
forgotten in the new sensation of lapping a man's 
palm, which had a wonderful taste hidden somewhere 
under its friendly roughnesses. They were still lick- 
ing my hands, nestling close against me, when a twig 
snapped faintly far behind us. 

Now, twig snapping is the great index to all that 
passes in the wilderness. Curiously enough, no two 
animals can break even a twig under their feet and 
give the same warning. The crack under a bear's 
foot, except when he is stalking his game, is heavy 
and heedless. The hoof of a moose crushes a twig, 
and chokes the sound of it before it can tell its mes- 
sage fairly. When a twig speaks under a deer in his 
passage through the woods,. the sound is sharp, dainty, 



What the Fawns Must Know 7 

alert. It suggests the plop of a raindrop into the lake. 
And the sound behind us now could not be mistaken. 
The mother of my little innocents was coming. 

I hated to frighten her, and through her to destroy 
their new confidence ; so I hurried back to the den, 
the little ones running close by my side. Ere I was 
halfway, a twig snapped sharply again; there was a 
swift rustle in the underbrush, and a doe sprang out 
with a low bleat as she saw the home log. 

At sight of me she stopped short, trembling vio- 
lently, her ears pointing forward like two accusing 
fingers, an awful fear in her soft eyes as she saw her 
little ones with her archenemy between them, his 
hands resting on their innocent necks. Her body 
swayed away, every muscle tense for the jump; but 
her feet seemed rooted to the spot. Slowly she 
swayed back to her balance, her eyes holding mine; 
then away again as the danger scent poured into her 
nose. But still the feet stayed. She could not move ; 
could not believe. Then, as I waited quietly and 
tried to make my eyes say all sorts of friendly things, 
the harsh, throaty K-a-a-a-h ! k-a-a-a-h ! the danger 
cry of the deer, burst like a trumpet blast through 
the woods, and she leaped back to cover. 

At the sound the little ones jumped as if stung, 
and plunged into the brush in the opposite direction. 



8 Wood Folk at School 

But the strange place frightened them ; the hoarse 
cry that went crashing through the startled woods 
filled them with nameless dread. In a moment they 
were back again, nestling close against me, growing 
quiet as the hands stroked their sides without tremor 
or hurry. 

Around us, out of sight, ran the fear-haunted 
mother, calling, calling; now showing her head, with 
the terror deep in her eyes ; now dashing away, with 
her white flag up, to show her little ones the way they 
must take. But the fawns gave no heed after- the 
first alarm. They felt the change; their ears were 
twitching nervously, and their eyes, which had not 
yet grown quick enough to measure distances and 
find their mother in her hiding, were full of strange 
terror as they questioned mine. Still, under the 
alarm, they felt the kindness which the poor mother, 
dog-driven and waylaid by guns, had never known. 
Therefore they stayed, with a deep wisdom beyond 
all her' cunning, where they knew they were safe. 

I led them slowly back to their hiding place, gave 
them a last lick at my hands, and pushed them gently 
under the hemlock curtain. When they tried to come 
out I pushed them back again. " Stay there, and 
mind your mother; stay there, and follow your 
mother," I kept whispering. And to this day I have 




"THE WHITE FLAG SHOWING LIKE A BEACON 
LIGHT AS SHE JUMPED AWAY" 



What the Fawns Must Know 9 

a half belief that they understood, not the word but 
the feeling behind it; for they grew quiet after a 
time and looked out with wide-open, wondering eyes. 
Then I dodged out of sight, jumped the fallen log 
to throw them off the scent should they come out, 
crossed the brook, and glided out of sight into the 
underbrush. Once safely out of hearing I headed 
straight for the open, a few yards away, where the 
blasted stems of the burned hillside showed faintly 
through the green of the big woods, and climbed, 
and looked, and changed my position, till at last I 
could see the fallen tree under whose roots my little 
innocents were hiding. 

The hoarse danger cry had ceased ; the woods were 
all still again. A movement in the underbrush, and 
I saw the doe glide out beyond the brook and stand 
looking, listening. She bleated softly; the hemlock 
curtain was thrust aside, and the little ones came out. 
At sight of them she leaped forward, a great gladness 
showing eloquently in every line of her graceful body, 
rushed up to them, dropped her head and ran her 
keen nose over them, ears to tail and down their sides 
and back again, to be sure that they were her own 
little ones and were not harmed. All the while the 
fawns nestled close to her, as they had done a moment 
before to me, and lifted their heads to touch her sides 



io Wood Folk at School 

with their noses, and ask in their own dumb way what 
it was all about, and why she had run away. 

Then, as the smell of the man came to her from the 
tainted underbrush, the absolute necessity of teaching 
them their neglected second lesson before another 
danger should find them swept over her in a flood. 
She sprang aside with a great bound, and the hoarse 
K-a-a-a-h ! k~a-a-a-h ! crashed through the woods 
again. Her tail was straight up, the white flag show- 
ing like a beacon light as she jumped away. Behind 
her the fawns stood startled a moment, trembling with 
a new wonder. Then their flags went up too, and 
they wabbled away on slender legs through the tangles 
and over the rough places of the wood, bravely follow- 
ing their leader. And I, watching from my hiding, 
with a vague regret that they could never again be 
mine, not even for a moment, saw only the crinkling 
lines of underbrush and here and there the flash of 
a little white flag. So they went up the hill and out 
of sight. 

First, lie still; and second, follow the white flag. 
When I saw them again it needed no danger cry of 
the mother to remind them of these two things that 
every fawn must know who would live to \ m M 
grow up in the big woods. ,.JF ^\\M 




Jt Cry in MeMgnt 



1 1 HIS is the rest of the story, just as I saw it, of 
the little fawns that I found under the mossy 

log by the brook. There were two of them, you 
i remember; and though they looked alike at first 
glance, I soon found out that there is just as much 
difference in fawns as there is in folks. Eyes, faces, 
dispositions, characters, — in all things they were as 
unlike as the virgins of the parable. One of them 
was wise, and the other was very foolish. The one 
was a follower, a learner; he never forgot his second 
lesson, to follow the white flag. The other followed 
from the first only his own willful head and feet, and 
discovered too late that obedience is life. Until the 
bear found him, I have no doubt he was thinking, in 
his own dumb, foolish way, that obedience is only for 
the weak and ignorant, and that government is only 



1 2 Wood Folk at School 

an unfair advantage which all the wilderness mothers 
take to keep little wild things from doing as they 
please. 

The wise old mother took them both away when 
she knew I had found them, and hid them in a deeper 
solitude of the big woods, nearer the lake, where she 
could the sooner reach them from her feeding grounds. 
For days after the wonderful discovery I used to go 
in the early morning or the late afternoon, while 
mother deer are away feeding along the watercourses, 
and search the dingle from one end to the other, 
hoping to find the little ones again and win their con- 
fidence. But they were not there; and I took to 
watching instead a family of mink that lived in a den 
under a root, and a big owl that always slept in the 
same hemlock. Then, one day when a flock of par- 
tridges led me out of the wild berry bushes into a 
cool green island of the burned lands, I ran plump 
upon the deer and her fawns lying all together under 
a fallen treetop, dozing away the heat of the day. 

They did not see me, but were only scared into 
action as a branch, upon which I stood looking for 
my partridges, gave way beneath my feet and let me 
down with a great crash under the fallen tree. There, 
looking out, I could see them perfectly, while Koo- 
kooskoos himself could hardly have seen me. At the 



A Cry in the Night 13 

first crack they all jumped like Jack-in-a-box when 
you touch his spring. The mother put up her white 
flag — which is the snowy underside of her useful 
tail, and shows like a beacon by day or night — and 
bounded away with a hoarse Ka-a-a-a-k ! of warning. 
One of the little ones followed her on the instant, 
jumping squarely in his mother's tracks, his own little 
white flag flying to guide any that might come after 
him. But the second fawn ran off at a tangent, and 
stopped in a moment to stare and whistle and stamp 
his tiny foot in an odd mixture of curiosity and defi- 
ance. The mother had to circle back twice before he 
followed her, at last, unwillingly. As she stole back 
each time, her tail was down and wiggling nervously 
— which is the sure sign, when you see it, that some 
scent of you is floating off through the woods and 
telling its warning into the deer's keen nostrils. But 
when she jumped away the white flag was straight 
up, flashing in the very face of her foolish fawn, tell- 
ing him as plain as any language what sign he must 
follow if he would escape danger and avoid breaking 
his legs in the tangled underbrush. 

I did not understand till long afterwards, when I 
had watched the fawns many times, how important 
is this latter suggestion. One who follows a fright- 
ened deer and sees or hears him go bounding off 



14 Wood Folk at School 

at breakneck pace over loose rocks and broken trees 
and tangled underbrush ; rising swift on one side of 
a windfall without knowing what lies on the other 
side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow 
over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest 
you wrench a foot or break an ankle, — finds himself 
asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can 
live half a season in the wilderness without breaking 
all his legs. And when you run upon a deer at night 
and hear him go smashing off in the darkness at the 
same reckless speed, over a tangled blow-down, per- 
haps, through which you can barely force your way 
by daylight, then you realize suddenly that the most 
wonderful part of a deer's education shows itself, not 
in keen eyes or trumpet ears, or in his finely trained 
nose, more sensitive a hundred times than any barom- 
eter, but in his forgotten feet, which seem to have eyes 
and nerves and brains packed into their hard shells 
instead of the senseless matter you see there. 

Watch the doe yonder as she bounds away, wig- 
wagging her heedless little one to follow. She is 
thinking only of him ; and now you see her feet free 
to take care of themselves. As she rises over the big 
windfall, they hang from the ankle joints, limp as a 
glove out of which the hand has been drawn, yet 
seeming to wait and watch. One hoof touches a 



A Cry in the Night 15 

twig; like lightning it spreads and drops, after run- 
ning for the smallest fraction of a second along the 
obstacle to know whether to relax or stiffen, or rise 
or fall to meet it. Just before she strikes the ground 
on the down plunge, see the wonderful hind hoofs 
sweep themselves forward, surveying the ground by 
touch, and bracing themselves, in a fraction of time 
so small that the eye cannot follow, for the shock of 
what lies beneath them, whether rock or rotten wood 
or yielding moss. The fore feet have followed the 
quick eyes above, and shoot straight and sure to their 
landing; but the hind hoofs must find the spot for 
themselves as they come down and, almost ere they 
find it, brace themselves again for the push of the 
mighty muscles above. 

Once only I found where a fawn with untrained feet 
had broken its leg; and once I heard of a wounded 
buck, driven to death by dogs, that had fallen in the 
same way never to rise again. Those were rare cases. 
The marvel is that it does not happen to every deer 
that fear drives through the wilderness. 

And that is another reason why the fawns must 
learn to obey a wiser head than their own. Till their 
little feet are educated, the mother must choose the 
way for them; and a wise fawn will jump squarely in 
her tracks. That explains also w 7 hy deer, even after 



1 6 Wood Folk at School 

they are full grown, will often walk in single file, a 
half-dozen of them sometimes following a wise leader, 
stepping in his tracks and leaving but a single trail. 
It is partly, perhaps, to fool their old enemy, the wolf, 
and their new enemy, the man, by hiding the weak- 
ling's trail in the stride and hoof mark of a big buck ; 
but it shows also the old habit, and the training which 
begins when the fawns first learn to follow the flag. 

After that second discovery I used to go in the 
afternoon to a point on the lake nearest the fawns' 
hiding place, and wait in my canoe for the mother to 
come out and show me where she had left her little 
ones. As they grew, and the drain upon her increased 
from their feeding, she seemed always half starved. 
Waiting in my canoe I would hear the crackle of 
brush, as she trotted straight down to the lake almost 
heedlessly, and see her plunge through the fringe of 
bushes that bordered the water. With scarcely a 
look or a sniff to be sure the coast was clear, she 
would jump for the lily pads. Sometimes the canoe 
was in plain sight ; but she gave no heed as she tore 
up the juicy buds and stems, and swallowed them 
with the appetite of a famished wolf. Then I would 
paddle away and, taking my direction from her trail 
as she came, hunt diligently for the fawns until I 
found them. 



A Cry in the Night 17 

This last happened only two or three times. The 
little ones were already wild; they had forgotten all 
about our first meeting, and when I showed myself, 
or cracked a twig too near them, they would promptly 
bolt into the brush. One always ran straight away, 
his white flag flying to show that he remembered his 
lesson; the other went off zigzag, stopping at every 
angle of his run to look back and question me with 
his eyes and ears. 

There was only one way in which such disobedi- 
ence could end. I saw 7 it plainly enough one after- 
noon, when, had I been one of the fierce prowlers of 
the wilderness, the little fellow's history would have 
stopped short under the paw of Upweekis, the shad- 
owy lynx of the burned lands. It w 7 as late afternoon 
when I came over a ridge, following a deer path on 
my way to the lake, and looked down into a long nar- 
row valley filled with berry bushes, and with a few 
fire-blasted trees standing here and there to point out 
the perfect loneliness and desolation of the place. 

Just below me a deer was feeding hungrily, only 
her hind quarters showing out of the underbrush. I 
watched her awhile, then dropped on all fours and 
began to creep towards her, to see how near I could 
get and what new trait I might discover. But at the 
first motion (I had stood at first like an old stump on 



1 8 Wood Folk at School ■ 

the ridge) a fawn that had evidently been watching 
me all the time from his hiding sprang into sight with 
a sharp whistle of warning. The doe threw up her 
head, looking straight at me as if she had understood 
more from the signal than I had thought possible. 
There was not an instant's hesitation or searching. 
Her eyes went direct to me, as if the fawn's cry had 
said : " Behind you, mother, in the path by the second 
gray rock ! " Then she jumped away, shooting up the 
opposite hill over roots and rocks as if thrown by steel 
springs, blowing hoarsely at every jump, and followed 
in splendid style by her watchful little one. 

At the first snort of danger there was a rush in the 
underbrush near where she had stood, and a second 
fawn sprang into sight. I knew him instantly — - the 
heedless one — and knew also that he had neglected 
too long the matter of following the flag. He was 
confused, frightened, chuckle-headed now; he came 
darting up the deer path in the wrong direction, 
straight towards me, to within two jumps, before he 
noticed the man kneeling in the path before him and 
watching him quietly. 

At the startling discovery he stopped short, seeming 
to shrink smaller and smaller before my eyes. Then 
he edged sidewise to a great stump, hid himself among 
the roots, and stood stock-still, — a beautiful picture of 



A Cry in the Night 19 

innocence and curiosity, framed in the rough brown 
roots of the spruce stump. It was his first teaching, 
to hide and be still. Just as he needed it most, he 
had forgotten absolutely the second lesson. 

We watched each other full five minutes without 
moving an eyelash. Then his first lesson ebbed away. 
He sidled out into the path again, came towards me 
two dainty, halting steps, and stamped prettily with his 
left fore foot. He was a young buck, and had that 
trick of stamping without any instruction. It is an 
old, old ruse to make you move, to startle you by the 
sound and threatening motion into showing who you 
are and what are your intentions. 

But still the man did not move; the fawn grew 
frightened at his own boldness and ran away dow T n 
the path. Far up the opposite hill I heard the mother 
calling him. But he heeded not; he wanted to find 
out things for himself. There he was in the path 
again, watching me. I took out my handkerchief and 
waved it gently; at which great marvel he trotted 
back, stopping anon to look and stamp his little foot, 
to show me that he was not afraid. 

" Brave little chap, I like you," I thought, my heart 
going out to him as he stood there with his soft eyes 
and beautiful face, stamping his little foot. " But 
what," my thoughts went on, "had happened to you 



20 Wood Folk at School 

ere now, had a bear or lucivee lifted his head over the 
ridge ? Next month, alas ! the law will be off ; then 
there will be hunters in these woods, some of whom 
leave their hearts, with their wives and children, 
behind them. You can't trust them, believe me, little 
chap. Your mother is right ; you can't trust them." 

The night was coming swiftly. The mother's call, 
growing ever more anxious, more insistent, swept over 
the darkening hillside. " Perhaps," I thought, with 
sudden twinges and alarms of conscience, " perhaps I 
set you all wrong, little chap, in giving you the taste 
of salt that day, and teaching you to trust things that 
meet you in the wilderness." That is generally the 
way when we meddle with Mother Nature, who has 
her own good reasons for doing things as she does. 
" But no ! there were two of you under the old log 
that day ; and the other, — he 's up there with his 
mother now, where you ought to be, — he knows that 
old laws are safer than new thoughts, especially new 
thoughts in the heads of foolish youngsters. You are 
all wrong, little chap, for all your pretty curiosity, 
and the stamp of your little foot that quite wins my 
heart. Perhaps I am to blame, after all; anyway, 
I '11 teach you better now." 

At the thought I picked up a large stone and sent 
it crashing, jumping, tearing down the hillside straight 



A Cry in the Night 21 

at him. All his bravado vanished like a wink. Up 
went his flag, and away he went over the logs and 
rocks of the great hillside ; where presently I heard 
his mother running in a great circle till she found 
him with her nose, thanks to the wood wires and the 
wind's message, and led him away out of danger. 

One who lives for a few weeks in the wilderness, 
with eyes and ears open, soon finds that, instead of 
the lawlessness and blind chance which seem to hold 
sway there, he lives in the midst of law and order — 
an order of things much older than that to which he 
is accustomed, with which it is not well to interfere. I 
was uneasy, following the little deer path through the 
twilight stillness ; and my uneasiness was not decreased 
when I found on a log, within fifty yards of the spot 
where the fawn first appeared, the signs of a big luci- 
vee, with plenty of fawn's hair and fine-cracked bones 
to tell me what he had eaten for his midnight dinner. 

Down at the lower end of the same deer path, 
where it stopped at the lake to let the wild things 
drink, was a little brook. Outside the mouth of this 
brook, among the rocks, was a deep pool; and in the 
pool lived some big trout. I was there one night, 
some two weeks later, trying to catch some of the 
big trout for my next breakfast. 



22 Wood Folk at School 

Those were wise fish. It was of no use to angle 
for them by day any more. They knew all the flies 
in my book; could tell the new Jenny Lind from 
the old Bumble Bee before it struck the water; and 
seemed to know perfectly, both by instinct and expe- 
rience, that they were all frauds, which might as well 
be called Jenny Bee and Bumble Lind for any sweet 
reasonableness that was in them. Besides all this, 
the water was w r arm ; the trout were logy and would 
not rise. 

By night, however, the case was different. A few 
of the trout would leave the pool and prowl along the 
shores in shallow water to see what tidbits the dark- 
ness might bring, in the shape of night bugs and care- 
less piping frogs and sleepy minnows. Then, if you 
built a fire on the beach and cast a white-winged fly 
across the path of the firelight, you would sometimes 
get a big one. 

It was fascinating sport always, whether the trout 
were rising or not. One had to fish with his ears, 
and keep most of his wits in his hand, ready to strike 
quick and hard when the moment came, after an hour 
of casting. Half the time you would not see your 
fish at all, but only hear the savage plunge as he 
swirled down with your fly. At other times, as you 
struck sharply at the plunge, your fly would come 



A Cry in the Night 23 

back to you, or tangle itself up in unseen snags ; and 
far out, where the verge of the firelight rippled away 
into darkness, you would see a sharp wave-wedge 
shooting away, which told you that your trout was 
only a musquash. Swimming quietly by, he had seen 
you and your fire, and slapped his tail down hard on 
the water to make you jump. That is a way Mus- 
quash has in the night, so that he can make up his 
mind what queer thing you are and w T hat you are 
doing. 

All the while, as you fish, the great dark woods 
stand close about you, silent, listening. The air is 
full of scents and odors that steal abroad only by 
night, while the air is dew-laden. Strange cries, 
calls, squeaks, rustlings run along the hillside, or float 
in from the water, or drop down from the air over- 
head, to make you guess and wonder what wood folk 
are abroad at such unseemly hours, and what they are 
about. So that it is good to fish by night, as well as 
by day, and go home with heart and head full, even 
though your creel be empty. 

I was standing very still by my fire, waiting for a 
big trout that had risen and missed my fly to regain 
his confidence, when I heard cautious rustlings in the 
brush behind me. I turned instantly, and there were 
two great glowing spots, the eyes of a deer, flashing 



24 Wood Folk at School 

out of the dark woods. A swift rustle, and two more 
coals glow lower down, flashing and scintillating with 
strange colors ; and then two more ; and I know that 
the doe and her fawns are there, stopped and fasci- 
nated on their way to drink by the great wonder of 
the light, and by the witchery of the dancing shadows 
that rush up at timid wild things, as if to frighten 
them, but only jump over them and back again, as 
if inviting them to join the silent play. 

I knelt down quietly beside my fire, slipping on 
a great roll of birch bark which blazed, up brightly, 
filling the woods with light. There, under a spruce, 
where a dark shadow had been a moment agone, 
stood the mother, her eyes all ablaze with the wonder 
of the light; now staring steadfastly into the fire; 
now starting nervously, with low questioning snorts, 
as a troop of shadows ran up to play hop-scotch with 
the little ones, which stood close behind her, one on 
either side. 

A moment only it lasted. Then one fawn — I 
knew the heedless one, even in the firelight, by his 
face and by his bright-dappled Joseph's coat — came 
straight towards me, stopping to stare with flashing 
eyes when the fire jumped up, and then to stamp his 
little foot at the shadows to show them that he was 
not afraid. 




'HER EYES ALL ABLAZE WITH THE 
WONDER OF THE LIGHT" 



A Cry in the Night 25 

The mother called him anxiously; but still he 
came on, stamping prettily. She grew uneasy, trot- 
ting back and forth in a half circle, warning, calling, 
pleading. Then, as he came between her and the 
fire, and his little shadow stretched away up the hill 
where she was, showing how far away he was from 
her and how near the light, she broke away from 
its fascination with an immense effort : Ka-a-a-h ! 
ka-a-a-k ! the hoarse cry rang through the startled 
woods like a pistol shot; and she bounded away, her 
white flag shining like a wave crest in the night to 
guide her little ones. 

The second fawn followed her instantly; but the 
heedless one barely swung his head to see where she 
was going, and then came on towards the light, star- 
ing and stamping in foolish wonder. 

I watched him a little while, fascinated myself by 
his beauty, his dainty motions, his soft ears with a 
bright oval of light about them, his wonderful eyes 
glowing like burning rainbows kindled by the fire- 
light. Far behind him the mother's cry ran back 
and forth along the hillside. Suddenly it changed; 
a danger note leaped into*it; and again I heard the 
call to follow and the crash of brush as she leaped 
away. I remembered the lynx and the sad little his- 
tory written on the log above. As the quickest way 



26 Wood Folk at School 

of saving the foolish youngster, I kicked my fire to 
pieces and walked out towards him. Then, as the 
wonder vanished in darkness and the scent of the 
man poured up to him on the lake's breath, the little 
fellow bounded away — alas ! straight up the deer 
path, at right angles to the course his mother had 
taken a moment before. 

Five minutes later I heard the mother calling a 
strange note in the direction he had taken, and went 
up the deer path very quietly to investigate. At the 
top of the ridge, where the path dropped away into 
a dark narrow valley with dense underbrush on either 
side, I heard the fawn answering her, below me among 
the big trees, and knew instantly that something had 
happened. He called continuously, a plaintive cry 
of distress, in the black darkness of the spruces. 
The mother ran around him in a great circle, calling 
him to come ; while he lay helpless in the same spot, 
telling her he could not, and that she must come to 
him. So the cries went back and forth in the listen- 
ing night, — Hoo-wuh, "come here." Bla-a-a, blr-r-t, 
" I can't ; come here." Ka-a~a-h, ka-a-a-k ! " danger, 
follow ! " — and then the crash of brush as she rushed 
away followed by the second fawn, whom she must 
save, though she abandoned the heedless one to 
prowlers of the night. 



A Cry in the Night 27 

It was clear enough what had happened. The 
cries of the wilderness all have their meaning, if one 
but knows how to interpret them. Running through 
the dark woods his untrained feet had missed their 
landing, and he lay now under some rough windfall, 
with a broken leg to remind him of the lesson he 
had neglected so long. 

I was stealing along towards him, feeling my way 
among the trees in the darkness, stopping every 
moment to listen to his cry to guide me, when a 
heavy rustle came creeping down the hill and passed 
close before me. Something, perhaps, in the sound 
— a heavy, though almost noiseless onward push 
which only one creature in the woods can possibly 
make — something, perhaps, in a faint new odor in 
the moist air told me instantly that keener ears than 
mine had heard the cry; that Mooween the bear had 
left his blueberry patch, and was stalking the heed- 
less fawn, whom he knew, by the hearing of his ears, 
to have become separated from his watchful mother 
in the darkness. 

I regained the path silently — though Mooween 
heeds nothing when his game is afoot — and ran 
back to the canoe for my rifle. Ordinarily a bear 
is timid as a rabbit; but I had never met one so 
late at night before, and knew not how he would act 



28 Wood Folk at School 

should I take his game away. Besides, there is every- 
thing in the feeling with which one approaches an 
animal. If one comes timidly, doubtfully, the animal 
knows it ; and if one comes swift, silent, resolute, with 
his power gripped tight, and the hammer back, and 
a forefinger resting lightly on the trigger guard, the 
animal knows it too, you may depend. Anyway, 
they always act as if they knew ; and you may safely 
follow the rule that, whatever your feeling is, whether 
fear or doubt or confidence, the large and dangerous 
animals will sense it instantly and adopt the opposite 
feeling for their rule of action. That is the way I 
have always found it in the wilderness. I met a bear 
once on a narrow path — but I must tell about that 
elsewhere. 

The cries had ceased ; the woods were all dark 
and silent when I came back. I went as swiftly as 
possible — without heed or caution ; for whatever 
crackling I made the bear would attribute to the des- 
perate mother — to the spot where I had turned back. 
Thence I went on cautiously, taking my bearings from 
one great tree on the ridge that lifted its bulk against 
the sky; slower and slower, till, just this side a great 
windfall, a twig cracked sharply under my foot. It 
was answered instantly by a grunt and a jump beyond 
the windfall — and then the crashing rush of a bear up 



A Cry in the Night 29 

the hill, carrying something that caught and swished 
loudly on the bushes as it passed, till the sounds van- 
ished in a faint rustle far away, and the woods were 
still again. 

All night long, from my tent over beyond an arm 
of the big lake, I heard the mother calling at inter- 
vals. She seemed to be running back and forth along 
the ridge, above where the tragedy had occurred. 
Her nose told her of the bear and the man; but 
what awful thing they were doing with her little one 
she knew not. Fear and questioning were in the 
calls that floated down the ridge and across the water 
to my little tent. 

At daylight I went back to the spot. I found with- 
out trouble where the fawn had fallen ; the moss told 
mutely of his struggle; and a stain or two showed 
where Mooween grabbed him. The rest was a plain 
trail of crushed moss and bent grass and stained 
leaves, and a tuft of soft hair here and there on the 
jagged ends of knots in the old windfalls. So the 
trail hurried up the hill into a wild, rough country 
where it was of no use to follow. 

As I climbed the last ridge on my way back to the 
lake, I heard rustlings in the underbrush, and then 
the unmistakable crack of a twig under a deer's foot. 
The mother had winded me ; she was now following 



3° 



Wood Folk at School 



and circling down wind to find out whether her lost 
fawn were with me. As yet she knew not what had 
happened. The bear had frightened her into extra 
care of the one fawn of whom she was sure. The 
other had simply vanished into the silence and mys- 
tery of the great woods. 

Where the path turned downward, in sight of the 
lake, I saw her for a moment plainly, standing half 
hid in the underbrush, looking intently at my old 
canoe. She saw me at the same instant and bounded 
away, quartering up the hill in my direction. Near 
a thicket of evergreen that I had just passed, she 
sounded her hoarse K-a-a-h, k-a-a-h ! and threw up 
her flag. There was a rush within the thicket; a 
sharp K-a-a-h! answered hers. Then the second 
fawn burst out of the cover where she had hidden 
him, and darted along the ridge after her, jumping 
like a big red fox from rock to rock, rising like a 
hawk over the windfalls, hitting her tracks 
wherever he could, and keeping his little 

nose hard down 



to his one need- 
ful lesson of fol- 
lowing the white 
flag. 







j* 



^JsfJAQUES 




?^C THEMSHHAWK 

6Tyl /^ ; ^ o^V, cJiwee?_ Whit, whit, whit, 
\w/W ctiweeeeee ! over my head went the shrill 
|^ whistling, the hunting cry of Ismaques. 
Looking up from my fishing I could see the broad 
wings sweeping over me, and catch the bright gleam 
of his eye as he looked down into my canoe, or behind 
me at the cold place among the rocks, to see if I were 
catching anything. Then, as he noted the pile of fish, 
— a blanket of silver on the black rocks, where I was 
stowing away chub for bear bait, — he would drop 
lower in amazement to see how I did it. When the 
trout were not rising, and his keen glance saw no 
gleam of red and gold in my canoe, he would circle 
off with a cheery K'weee ! the good-luck call of a 
brother fisherman. For there is no envy nor malice 
nor any uncharitableness in Ismaques. He lives in 
harmony with the world, and seems glad when you 
land a big one, even though he be hungry himself, 

31 



32 Wood Folk at School 

and the clamor from his nest, where his little ones 
are crying, be too keen for his heart's content. 

What is there in going a-fishing, I wonder, that 
seems to change even the leopard's spots, and that 
puts a new heart into the man who hies him away to 
the brook when buds are swelling? There is Kee- 
onekh the otter. Before he turned fisherman he was 
probably fierce, cruel, bloodthirsty, with a vile smell 
about him, like all the other weasels. Now he lives 
at peace with all the world and is clean, gentle, play- 
ful as a kitten and faithful as a dog when you make 
a pet of him. And there is Ismaques the fishhawk. 
Before he turned fisherman he was probably hated, 
like every other hawk, for his fierceness and his ban- 
dit ways. The shadow of his wings was the signal 
for hiding to all the timid ones. Jay and crow cried 
Thief ! thief ! and kingbird sounded his war cry and 
rushed out to battle. Now the little birds build their 
nests among the sticks of his great house, and the 
shadow of his wings is a sure protection. For owl and 
hawk and wild-cat have learned long since the wisdom 
of keeping well away from Ismaques' dwelling. 

Not only the birds, but men also, feel the change 
in Ismaques' disposition. I hardly know a hunter 
who will not go out of his way for a shot at a hawk ; 
but they send a hearty good-luck after this winged 



Ismaques the Fishhawk 2>3 

fisherman of the same fierce family, even though they 
see him rising heavily out of the very pool where the 
big trout live, and where they expect to cast their 
flies at sundown. Along the southern New England 
shores his coming — regular as the calendar itself — 
is hailed with delight by the fishermen. One state, 
at least, where he is most abundant, protects him by 
law; and even our Puritan forefathers, who seem to 
have neither made nor obeyed any game laws, looked 
upon him with a kindly eye, and made him an excep- 
tion to the general license for killing. To their credit, 
be it known, they once " publikly reeprimanded " one 
Master Eliphalet Bodman, a son of Belial evidently, 
for violently, with powder and shot, doing away with 
one fishhawk, and wickedly destroying the nest and 
eggs of another. 

Whether this last were also done violently, with 
powder and shot, by blowing the nest to pieces with 
an old gun, or in simple boy-fashion by shinning up 
the tree, the quaint old town record does not tell. 
But all this goes to show that our ancestors of the 
coast were kindly people at heart; that they looked 
upon this brave, simple fisherman, who built his nest 
by their doors, much as the German village people 
look upon the stork that builds upon their chimneys, 
and regarded his coming as an omen of good luck 
and plenty to the fisher folk. 



34 Wood Folk at School 

Far back in the wilderness, where Ismaques builds 
his nest and goes a-fishing just as his ancestors did 
a thousand years ago, one finds the same honest bird, 
unspoiled alike by plenty or poverty, that excited 
our boyish imagination and won the friendly regard 
of our ancestors of the coast Opposite my camp on 
the lake, where I tarried long one summer, charmed 
by the beauty of the place and the good fishing, a 
pair of fishhawks had built their nest in the top of a 
great spruce on the mountain side. It was this pair 
of birds that came daily to circle over my canoe, or 
over the rocks where I fished for chub, to see how 
I fared, and to send back a cheery CJiwee ! chip, 
cliweeee ! "good luck and good fishing," as they 
wheeled away. It would take a good deal of argu- 
ment now to convince me that they did not at last 
recognize me as a fellow-fisherman, and were not 
honestly interested in my methods and success. 

At first I went to the nest, not so much to study 
the fishhawks as to catch fleeting glimpses of a shy, 
wild life of the woods, which is hidden from most 
eyes. The fishing was good, and both birds were 
expert fishermen. While the young were growing 
there was always an abundance in the big nest on 
the spruce top. The overflow of this abundance, in 
the shape of heads, bones and unwanted remnants, 



Ismaques the Fishhawk 35 

was cast over the sides of the nest and furnished 
savory pickings for a score of hungry prowlers. Mink 
came over from frog hunting in the brook, drawn by 
the good smell in the air. Skunks lumbered down 
from the hill, with a curious, hollow, bumping sound 
to announce their coming. Weasels, and one grizzly 
old pine marten, too slow or rheumatic for successful 
tree hunting, glided out of the underbrush and helped 
themselves without asking leave. Wild-cats quarreled 
like fiends over the pickings ; more than once I heard 
them there screeching in the night. And one late 
afternoon, as I lingered in my hiding among the rocks 
while the shadows deepened, a big lucivee stole out 
of the bushes, as if ashamed of himself, and took to 
nosing daintily among the fish bones. 

It was his first appearance, evidently. He did not 
know that the feast was free, but thought all the while 
that he was stealing somebody's catch. One could 
see it all in his attitudes, his starts and listenings, his 
low growlings to himself. He was bigger than any- 
body else there, and had no cause to be afraid; but 
there is a tremendous respect among all animals for 
the chase law r and the rights of others; and the big 
cat felt it. He was hungry for fish; but, big as he 
was, his every movement showed that he was ready 
to take to his heels before the first little creature 



36 Wood Folk at School 

that should rise up and .screech in his face: "This 
is mine ! " Later, when he grew accustomed to 
things and the fishhawks' generosity in providing a 
feast for all who might come in from the wilderness 
byways and hedges, he would come in boldly enough 
and claim his own ; but now, moving stealthily about, 
halting and listening timidly, he furnished a study in 
animal rights that repaid in itself all the long hours 
of watching. 

But the hawks themselves were more interesting 
than their unbidden guests. Ismaques, honest fellow 
that he is, mates for life, and comes back to the same 
nest year after year. The only exception to this rule 
that I know is in the case of a fishhawk, whom I 
knew well as a boy, and who lost his mate one sum- 
mer by an accident. The accident came from a gun 
in the hands of an unthinking sportsman. The grief 
of Ismaques was evident, even to the unthinking. 
One could hear it in the lonely, questioning cry that 
he sent out over the still summer woods; and see it 
in the sweep of his wings as he went far afield to 
other ponds, not to fish, for Ismaques never fishes 
on his neighbor's preserves, but to search for his lost 
mate. For weeks he lingered in the old haunts, call- 
ing and searching everywhere ; but at last the loneli- 
ness and the memories were too much for him. He 



Ismaques the Fishhawk 37 

left the place long before the time of migration had 
come; and the next spring a strange couple came to 
the spot, repaired the old nest, and went fishing in 
the pond. Ordinarily the birds respect each other's 
fishing grounds, and especially the old nests ; but this 
pair came and took pqssession without hesitation, as 
if they had some understanding with the former owner, 
who never came back again. 

The old spruce on the mountain side had been 
occupied many years by my fishing friends. As is 
usually the case, it had given up its life to its bird 
masters. The oil from their frequent feastings had 
soaked into the bark; following down and down, check- 
ing the sap's rising, till at last it grew discouraged 
and ceased to climb. Then the tree died and gave 
up its branches, one by one, to repair the nest above. 
The jagged, broken ends showed everywhere how they 
had been broken off to supply the hawks' necessities. 

There is a curious bit of building lore suggested by 
these broken branches, that one may learn for himself 
any springtime by watching the birds at their nest 
building. Large sticks are required for a foundation. 
The ground is strewed with such ; but Ismaques never 
comes down to the ground if he can avoid it. Even 
when he drops an unusually heavy fish, in his flight 
above the trees, he looks after it regretfully, but never 



38 Wood Folk at School 

follows. He may be hungry, but he will not set his 
huge hooked talons on the earth. He cannot walk, 
and loses all his power there. So he goes off and 
fishes patiently, hours long, to replace his lost catch. 

When he needs sticks for his nest, he searches out 
a tree and breaks off the dead ^ranches by his weight. 
If the stick be stubborn, he rises far above it and 
drops like a cannon ball, gripping it in his claws and 
snapping it short off at the same instant by the force 
of his blow. Twice I have been guided to where 
Ismaques and his mate were collecting material by 
reports like pistol shots ringing through the wood, 
as the great birds fell upon the dead branches and 
snapped them off. Once, when he came down too 
hard, I saw him fall almost to the ground, flapping 
lustily, before he found his wings and sailed away 
with his four-foot stick triumphantly. 

There is another curious bit of bird lore that I dis- 
covered here in the autumn, when, much later than 
usual, I came back through the lake. Ismaques, when 
he goes away for the long winter at the South, does 
not leave his house to the mercy of the winter storms 
until he has first repaired it. Large fresh sticks are 
wedged in firmly across the top of the nest ; doubtful 
ones are pulled out and carefully replaced, and the 
whole structure made shipshape for stormy weather. 



Ismaques the Fishhawk 39 

This careful repair, together with the fact that the 
nest is always well soaked in oil, which preserves it 
from the rain, saves a deal of trouble for Ismaques. 
He builds for life and knows, when he goes away in 
the fall, that, barring untoward accidents, his house 
will be waiting for him with the quiet welcome of 
old associations when he comes back in the spring. 
Whether this is a habit of all ospreys, or only of 
the two on Big Squatuk Lake — who were very wise 
birds in other ways — I am unable to say. 

What becomes of the young birds is also, to me, a 
mystery. The home ties are very strong, and the 
little ones stay with the parents much longer than 
most other birds do ; but when the spring comes you 
will see only the old birds at the home nest. The 
young come back to the same general neighborhood, 
I think ; but where the lake is small they never build 
nor trespass on the same waters. As with the king- 
fishers and sheldrakes, each pair of birds seem to have 
their own pond or portion; but by what old law of 
the waters they find and stake their claim is yet to 
be discovered. 

There were two little ones in the nest when I first 
found it; and I used to watch them in the intervals 
when nothing was stirring in the underbrush near 
my hiding place. They were happy, whistling, little 



40 Wood Folk at School 

fellows, well fed and contented with the world. At 
times they would stand for hours on the edge of the 
nest, looking down over the slanting tree-tops to 
the lake, finding the great rustling green world, and 
the passing birds, and the glinting of light on the 
sparkling water, and the hazy blue of the distant 
mountains marvelously interesting, if one could judge 
from their attitude and their pipings. Then a pair of 
broad wings would sweep into Sight, and they would 
stretch their wings wide and break into eager whis- 
tlings, — Pip, pip, ctiwee? chip, ctiweeeeee? "did you 
get him ? is he a big one, mother ? " And they would 
stand tiptoeing gingerly about the edge of the great 
nest, stretching their necks eagerly for a first glimpse 
of the' catch. 

At times only one of the old birds would go a-fish- 
ing, while the other watched the nest. But when 
luck was poor both birds would seek the lake. At 
such times the mother bird, larger and stronger than 
the male, would fish along the shore, within sight and 
hearing of her little ones. The male, meanwhile, 
would go sweeping down the lake to the trout pools 
at the outlet, where the big chub lived, in search of 
better fishing grounds. If the wind were strong, you 
would see a curious bit of sea lore as he came back 
with his fish. He would never fly straight against the 



Ismaques the Fishhawk 41 

wind, but tack back and forth, as if he had learned the 
trick from watching the sailor fishermen of the coast 
beating back into harbor. And, watching him through 
your glass, you would see that he always carried his 
fish endwise and head first, so as to present the least 
possible resistance to the breeze. 

While the young were being fed, you were certain 
to gain new respect for Ismaques by seeing how well 
he brought up his little ones. If the fish were large, 
it was torn into shreds and given piecemeal to the 
young, each of whom waited for his turn with exem- 
plary patience. There was no crowding or pushing 
for the first and biggest bite, such as you see in a 
nest of robins. If the fish were small, it was given 
entire to one of the young, who worried it down as 
best he could, while the mother bird swept back to 
the lake for another. The second nestling stood on 
the edge of the nest meanwhile, whistling good luck 
and waiting his turn, without a thought, apparently, 
of seizing a share from his mate beside him. 

Just under the hawks a pair of jays had built 
their nest among the sticks of Ismaques' dwelling, 
and raised their young on the abundant crumbs 
which fell from the rich man's table. It was curi- 
ous and intensely interesting to watch the change 



42 Wood Folk at School 

which seemed to be going on in the jays' disposi- 
tion by reason of the unusual friendship. Deedee- 
askh the jay has not a friend among the wood folk. 
They all know he is a thief and a meddler, and hunt 
him away without mercy if they find him near their 
nests. But the great fishhawks welcomed him, trusted 
him ; and he responded nobly to the unusual confi- 
dence. He never tried to steal from the young, not 
even when the mother bird was away, but contented 
himself with picking up the stray bits that they 
had left. And he more than repaid Ismaques by 
the sharp watch which he kept over the nest, and 
indeed over all the mountain side. Nothing passes 
in the woods without the jay's knowledge ; and here 
he seemed, for all the world, like a watchful terrier, 
knowing that he had only to bark to bring a power 
of wing and claw sufficient to repel any danger. 
When prowlers came down from the mountain to 
feast on the heads and bones scattered about the 
foot of the tree, Deedeeaskh dropped down among 
them and went dodging about, whistling his insati- 
able curiosity. So long as they took only what was 
their own, he made no fuss about it ; but he was there 
to watch, and he let them know sharply their mis- 
take, if they showed any desire to cast evil eyes at 
the nest above. 




'PRESENTLY THEY BEGAN TO SWOOP 
FIERCELY AT SOME ANIMAL" 



Ismaques the Fishhawk 43 

Once, as my canoe was gliding along the shore, 
I heard the jays' unmistakable cry of danger. The 
fishhawks were wheeling in great circles over the 
lake, watching for the glint of fish near the surface, 
when the cry came, and they darted away for the 
nest. Pushing out into the lake, I saw them sweep- 
ing above the tree-tops in swift circles, uttering short, 
sharp cries of anger. Presently they began to swoop 
fiercely at some animal — a fisher, probably — that was 
climbing the tree below. I stole up to see what it 
was ; but ere I reached the place they had driven the 
intruder away. I heard one of the jays far off in 
the woods, following the robber and screaming to let 
the fishhawks know just where he was. The other 
jay sat close by her own little ones, cowering under 
the shadow of the great dark wings above. And pres- 
ently Deedeeaskh came back, bubbling over with the 
excitement, whistling to them in his own way that he 
had followed the rascal clear to his den, and would 
keep a sharp watch over him in future. 

When a big hawk came near, or when, on dark after- 
, noons, a young owl took to hunting in the neighbor- 
hood, the jays sounded the alarm, and the fishhawks 
swept up from the lake on the instant. Whether 
Deedeeaskh were more concerned for his own young 
than for the young fishhawks I have no means of 



44 Wood Folk at School 

knowing. The fishermen's actions at such times 
showed a curious mixture of fear and defiance. The 
mother would sit on the nest while Ismaques circled 
over it, both birds uttering a shrill, whistling challenge. 
But they never attacked the feathered robbers, as they 
had done with the fisher, and, so far as I could see, 
there was no need. Kookooskoos the owl and Hawahak 
the hawk might be very hungry ; but the sight of those 
great wings circling over the nest and the shrill cry 
of defiance in their ears sent them hurriedly away to 
other hunting grounds. 

There was only one enemy that ever seriously 
troubled the fishhawks; and he did it in as decent 
a sort of way as was possible under the circumstances. 
That was Cheplahgan the eagle. When he was hungry 
and had found nothing himself, and his two eaglets, 
far away in their nest on the mountain, needed a bite 
of fish to vary their diet, he would set his wings to 
the breeze and mount up till he could see both ospreys 
at their fishing. There, sailing in slow circles, he 
would watch for hours till he saw Ismaques catch a 
big fish, when he would drop like a bolt and hold him 
up at the point of his talons, like any other highway- 
man. It was of no use trying to escape. Sometimes 
Ismaques would attempt it, but the great dark wings 
would whirl around him and strike down a sharp and 



Ismaques the Fishhawk 45 

unmistakable warning. It always ended the same 
way. Ismaques, being wise, would drop his fish, and 
the eagle would swoop down after it, often seizing it 
ere it reached the water. But he never injured the 
fishhawks, and he never disturbed the nest So they 
got along well enough together. Cheplahgan had a 
bite of fish now and then in his own high-handed 
way; and honest Ismaques, who never went long 
hungry, made the best of a bad situation. Which 
shows that fishing has also taught him patience, and 
a wise philosophy of living. 

The jays took no part in these struggles. Occa- 
sionally they cried out a sharp warning as Cheplah- 
gan came plunging down out of the blue, over the 
head of Ismaques; but they seemed to know per- 
fectly how the unequal contest must end, and they 
always had a deal of jabber among themselves over 
it, the meaning of which I could never make out. 

As for myself, I am sure that Deedeeaskh could 
never make up his mind what to think of me. At 
first, when I came, he would cry out a danger note 
that brought the fishhawks circling over their nest, 
looking down into the underbrush with wild yellow 
eyes to see what danger threatened. But after I had 
hidden myself away a few times, and made no motion 
to disturb either the nest or the hungry prowlers that 



46 Wood Folk at School 

came to feast on the fishhawks' bounty, Deedeeaskh 
set me down as an idle, harmless creature who would, 
nevertheless, bear watching. He never got over his 
curiosity to know what brought me there. Some- 
times, when I thought him far away, I would find him 
suddenly on a branch just over my head, looking down 
at me intently. When I went away he would follow 
me, whistling, to my canoe; but he never called the 
fishhawks again, unless some unusual action of mine 
aroused his suspicion ; and after one look they would 
circle away, as if they knew they had nothing to fear. 
They had seen me fishing so often that they thought 
they understood me, undoubtedly. 

There was one curious habit of these birds that I 
had never noticed before. Occasionally, when the 
weather threatened a change, or when the birds and 
their little ones had fed full, Ismaques would mount up 
to an enormous altitude, where he would sail about 
in slow circles, his broad vans steady to the breeze, 
as if he were an ordinary hen hawk, enjoying him- 
self and contemplating the world from an indifferent 
distance. Suddenly, with one clear, sharp whistle to 
announce his intention, he would drop like a plummet 
for a thousand feet, catch himself in mid-air, and zigzag 
down to the nest in the spruce top, whirling, diving, 
tumbling, and crying aloud the while in wild, ecstatic 



Ismaques the Fish hawk 47 

exclamations, — just as a woodcock comes whirling, 
plunging, twittering down from a height to his brown 
mate in the alders below. Then Ismaques would 
mount up again and repeat his dizzy plunge, while 
his larger mate stood quiet in the spruce top, and the 
little fishhawks tiptoed about the edge of the nest, pip- 
pipping their wonder and delight at their own papa's 
dazzling performance. 

This is undoubtedly one of Ismaques' springtime 
habits, by which he tries to win an admiring look from 
the keen yellow eyes of his mate; but I noticed him 
using it more frequently as the little fishhawks' w r ings 
spread to a wonderful length, and he w^as trying, with 
his mate, by every gentle means to induce them to 
leave the nest. And I have wondered — without being 
able at all to prove my theory — whether he were not 
trying in this remarkable way to make his little ones 
want to fly by showing them how wonderful a thing 
flying could be made to be. 






"^HERE came a day when, as I sat fish- 
ing among the rocks, the cry of the 
mother osprey changed as she came 
sweeping up to my fishing grounds, — 
Chip, cJiwee ! Chip, chip, ctiweeeee ? That 
was the fisherman's hail plainly enough ; but there was 
another note in it, a look-here cry of triumph and 
satisfaction. Before I could turn my head, for a fish 
was nibbling, there came other sounds behind it, — 
Pip, pip, pip, cJHweee ! pip, cltwee ! pip, ctiweeee ! a 
curious medley, a hail of good-luck cries ; and I knew 
without turning that two other fishermen had come to 
join the brotherhood. 

The mother bird — one can tell her instantly by her 
greater size and darker breast markings — veered in as 
I turned to greet the newcomers, and came directly 
over my head, her two little ones flapping lustily 
behind her. Two days before, when I went down to 
another lake on an excursion after bigger trout, the 



A School for Little Fishermen 49 

young fishhawks were still standing on the nest, turn- 
ing a deaf ear to all the old birds' assurances that 
the time had come to use their big wings. The last 
glimpse I had of them through my glass showed me 
the mother bird in one tree, the father in another, each 
holding a fish, which they were showing the young 
across a tantalizing short stretch of empty air, telling 
the young in fishhawk language to come across and 
get it ; while the young birds, on their part, stretched 
wings and necks hungrily and tried to w T histle the fish 
over to them, as one would call a dog across the street. 
In the short interval that I was absent mother wiles 
and mother patience had done their good work. The 
young were already flying well. Now they were out 
for their first lesson in fishing, evidently; and I stopped 
fishing myself, letting my bait sink into the mud — 
where an eel presently tangled my hooks into an old 
root — to see how it was done. For fishing is not an 
instinct with Ismaques, but a simple matter of train- 
ing. As with young otters, they know only from daily 
experience that fish, and not grouse and rabbits, are 
their legitimate food. Left to themselves, especially if 
one should bring them up on flesh and then turn them 
loose, they would go straight back to the old hawk 
habit of hunting the woods, which is much easier. To 
catch fish, therefore, they must be taught from the first 



50 Wood Folk at School 

day they leave the nest. And it is a fascinating expe- 
rience for any man to watch the way they go about it. 

The young ospreys flew heavily in short irregular 
circles, scanning the water with their inexperienced 
eyes for their first strike. Over them wheeled the 
mother bird on broad, even wings, whistling directions 
to the young neophytes, who would presently be initi- 
ated into the old sweet mysteries of going a-fishing. 
Fish were plenty enough ; but that means nothing to 
a fishhawk, who must see his game reasonably near 
the surface before making his swoop. There was a 
good jump on the lake, and the sun shone brightly 
into it/ Between the glare and the motion on the sur- 
face the young fishermen were having a hard time of 
it. Their eyes were not yet quick enough to tell them 
when to swoop. At every gleam of silver in the depths 
below they would stop short and cry out : Pip ! " there 
he is ! " Pip, pip ! " here goes ! " like a boy with his 
first nibble. But a short, clear whistle from the mother 
stopped them ere they had begun to fall; and they 
would flap up to her, protesting eagerly that they could 
catch that fellow, sure, if she would only let them try. 

As they wheeled in over me on their way down the 
lake, one of the youngsters caught the gleam of my pile 
of chub among the rocks. Pip, ctiweee ! he whistled, 
and down they came, both of them, like rockets. They 



A School for Little Fishermen 51 

were hungry ; here at hand were fish galore ; and they 
had not noticed me at all, sitting very still among the 
rocks. Pip, pip, pip, hurrah ! they piped as they 
came down. 

But the mother bird, who had noted me and my pile 
of fish the first thing as she rounded the point, swept in 
swiftly with a curious, half-angry, half-anxious chiding 
that I had never heard from her before, — Chip, chip, 
chip ! Chip ! Chip ! — growing sharper and shriller at 
each repetition, till they heeded it and swerved aside. 
As I looked up they were just over my head, looking 
down at me now with eager, wondering eyes. Then 
they were led aside in a wide circle and talked to with 
wise, quiet whistlings before they were sent back to 
their fishing again. 

And now as they sweep round and round over the 
edge of a shoal, one of the little fellows sees a fish 
and drops lower to follow it. The mother sees it too ; 
notes that the fish is slanting up to the surface, and 
wisely lets the young fisherman alone. He is too near 
the water now ; the glare and the dancing waves bother 
him ; he loses his gleam of silver in the flash of a white- 
cap. Mother bird mounts higher, and whistles him 
up where he can see better. But there is the fish 
again, and the youngster, hungry and heedless, sets 
his wings for a swoop. Chip, chip ! " wait, he 's going 



52 Wood Folk at School 

down," cautions the mother; but the little fellow, too 
hungry to wait, shoots down like an arrow. He is a 
yard above the surface when a big whitecap jumps up 
at him and frightens him. He hesitates, swerves, flaps 
lustily to save himself. Then under the whitecap is 
a gleam of silver again. Down he goes on the instant, 
— ugh ! boo ! — like a boy taking his first dive. He 
is out of sight for a full moment, while two waves race 
over him, and I hold my breath waiting for him to 
come up. Then he bursts out, sputtering and shaking 
himself, and of course without his fish. 

As he rises heavily the mother, who has been circling 
over him whistling advice and comfort, stops short 
with a single blow of her pinions against the air. She 
has seen the same fish, watched him shoot away under 
the plunge of her little one, and now sees him glanc- 
ing up to the edge of the shoal where the minnows 
are playing. She knows that the young pupils are 
growing discouraged, and that the time has come to 
hearten them. Chip, chip ! — " watch, I '11 show you," 
she whistles — Cheeeep ! with a sharp up-slide at the 
end, which I soon grow to recognize as the signal to 
strike. At the cry she sets her wings and shoots 
downward with strong, even plunge, strikes a wave 
squarely as it rises, passes under it, and is out on the 
other side gripping a big chub. The little ones follow 




! &v\t*t£^%\>\v 



'GRIPPING HIS FISH AND PIP-PIPPING 
HIS EXULTATION" 



A School for Little Fishermen 53 

her, whistling their delight, and telling her that per- 
haps now they will go back to the nest and take a 
look at the fish before they go on with their fishing. 
Which means, of course, that they will eat it and go 
to sleep perfectly satisfied with the good fun of fishing ; 
and then lessons are over for the day. 

The mother, however, has other thoughts in her wise 
head. She knows that the little ones are not yet tired, 
only hungry; and that there is much to teach them 
before the chub stop shoaling and fishhawks must be 
off to the coast. She knows also that they have thus 
far missed the two things she brought them out to 
learn: to take a fish always as he comes up; and to 
hit a wave always on the front side, under the crest. 
Gripping her fish tightly, she bends in her slow flight 
and paralyzes it by a single blow in the spine from 
her hooked beak. Then she drops it back into the 
whitecaps, where, jumping to the top of my rock, I 
can see it occasionally struggling near the surface. 

Cheeeep ! " try it now," she whistles. * 

Pip, pip ! "here goes!" cries the little one who 
failed before ; and down he drops, souse ! going clear 
under in his impatient hunger, forgetting precept and 
example and past experience. 

Again the waves race over him ; but there is a satis- 
fied note in the mother's whistle which tells me that 



54 Wood Folk at School 

she sees him, and that he is doing well. In a moment 
he is out again with a great rush and sputter, gripping 
his fish and pip-pipping his exultation. Away he goes 
in low heavy flight to the nest. The mother circles 
over him a moment to be sure he is not overloaded ; 
then she goes back with the other neophyte and ranges 
back and forth over the shoal's edge. 

It is clear now to even my eyes that there is a vast 
difference in the characters of young fishhawks. The 
first was eager, headstrong, impatient; the second is 
calmer, stronger, more obedient. He watches the 
mother ; he heeds her signals. Five minutes later he 
makes a clean, beautiful swoop and comes up with his 
fish. The mother whistles her praise as she drops 
beside him. My eyes follow them as, gossiping like 
two old cronies, they wing their slow way over the 
dancing whitecaps and climb the slanting tree-tops to 
the nest. 

The day's lessons are over now, and I go back to my 
bait-catching with a new admiration for these winged 
members of the brotherhood. Perhaps there is also a 
bit of envy or regret in my meditation as I tie on a 
new hook to replace the one that an uneasy eel is 
trying to rid himself of, down in the mud. If I had 
only had some one to teach me like that, I should 
certainly now be a better fisherman. 



A School for Little Fishermen 55 

Next day, when the mother came up the lake to the 
shoal with her two little ones, there w r as a surprise 
awaiting them. For half an hour I had been watching 
from the point to anticipate their coming. There were 
some things that puzzled me, and that puzzle me still, 
in Ismaques' fishing. If he caught his fish in his 
mouth, after the methods of loon and otter, I could 
understand it better. But to catch a fish — whose 
dart is like lightning — under the water with his feet, 
when, after his plunge, he can see neither his fish nor 
his feet, must require some puzzling calculation. And 
I had set a trap in my head to find out how it is 
done. 

When the fishermen hove into sight, and their eager 
pipings came faintly up the lake ahead of them, I 
paddled hastily out and turned loose a half-dozen chub 
in the shallow water. I had kept them alive as long 
as possible in a big pail, and they still had life enough 
to fin about near the surface. When the fishermen 
arrived I was sitting among the rocks as usual, and 
turned to acknowledge the mother bird's Ck'wee ? But 
my deep-laid scheme to find out their method accom- 
plished nothing; except, perhaps, to spoil the day's 
lesson. They saw my bait on the instant. One of 
the youngsters dove headlong without poising, went 
under, missed his fish, rose, plunged again. He got 



56 Wood Folk at School 

him that time and went away sputtering. The second 
took his time, came down on a long swift slant, and 
got his fish without going under. Almost before the 
lesson began it was over. The mother circled about 
for a few moments in a puzzled sort of way, watching 
the young fishermen flapping up the slope to their nest. 
Something was wrong. She had fished enough to know 
that success means something more than good luck; 
and this morning success had come too easily. She 
wheeled slowly over the shallows, noting the fish there, 
where they plainly did not belong, and dropping to 
examine with suspicion one big chub that was floating, 
belly up, on the water. Then she went under with a 
rush, where I could not see, came out again with a 
fish for herself, and followed her little ones to the 
nest. 

Next day I set the trap again in the same way. But 
the mother, with her lesson well laid out before her, 
remembered yesterday's unearned success and came 
over to investigate, leaving her young ones circling 
along the farther shore. There were the fish again, 
in shallow water ; and there — r too easy altogether ! — 
were two dead ones floating among the whitecaps. 
She wheeled away in a sharp turn, as if she had not 
seen anything, whistled her pupils up to her, and went 
on to other fishing grounds. 



A School for Little Fishermen 57 

Presently, above the next point, I heard their pip- 
ings and the sharp, up-sliding Cheeeep ! which was the 
mother's signal to swoop. Paddling up under the point 
in my canoe, I found them all wheeling and diving 
over a shoal, where I knew the fish were smaller and 
more nimble, and where there were lily pads for a 
haven of refuge, whither no hawk could follow them. 
Tw r enty times I saw them swoop only to miss, while 
the mother circled above or beside them, whistling 
advice and encouragement. And when at last they 
struck their fish and bore away towards the mountain, 
there was an exultation in their lusty wing beats, and 
in the whistling cry they sent back to me, which was 
not there the day before. 

The mother followed them at a distance, veering in 
when near my shoal to take another look at the fish 
there. Three were floating now instead of two; the 
others — what were left of them — struggled feebly at 
the surface. Chip, cliweee ! she whistled disdainfully ; 
"plenty fish here, but mighty poor fishing." Then 
she swooped, passed under, came out with a big chub, 
and was gone, leaving me only a blinding splash and 
a widening circle of laughing, dancing, tantalizing 
wavelets to tell me how she catches them. 





HERE are always two surprises when 
you meet a bear. You have one, and he 
has the other. On your tramps and camps 
in the big woods you may be on the look- 
out for Mooween ; you may be eager and even 
anxious to meet him ; but when you double the 
point or push into the blueberry patch and, sud- 
denly, there he is, blocking the path ahead, looking 
intently into your eyes to fathom at a glance your 
intentions, then, I fancy, the experience is like that 
of people who have the inquisitive habit of looking 
under their beds nightly for a burglar, and at last 
find him there, stowed away snugly, just where they 
always expected him to be. 

Mooween, on his part, is always looking for you 

when once he has learned that you have moved into 

58 



I 



When You Meet a Bear 59 

his woods. But not from any desire to see you! 
He is like a lazy man looking for work, and hoping 
devoutly that he may not find it. A bear has very 
little curiosity — less than any other of the wood folk. 
He loves to be alone ; and so, when he goes hunting 
for you, to find out just where you are, it is always 
with the creditable desire to leave you in as large a 
room as possible, while he himself goes quietly away 
into deeper solitudes. As this desire of his is much 
stronger than your mere idle curiosity to see some- 
thing new, you rarely see Mooween even where he is 
most at home. And that is but another bit of the 
poetic justice which you stumble upon everywhere in 
the big woods. 

It is more and more evident, I think, that Nature 
adapts her gifts, not simply to the necessities, but 
more largely to the desires, of her creatures. The 
force and influence of that intense desire — more 
intense because usually each animal has but one — 
we have not yet learned to measure. The owl has 
a silent wing, not simply because he needs it — for 
his need is no greater than that of the hawk, who has 
no silent wing — but, more probably, because of his 
whole-hearted desire for silence as he glides through 
the silent twilight. And so with the panther's foot; 
and so with the deer's eye, and the wolf's nose, whose 



60 Wood Folk at School 

one idea of bliss is a good smell ; and so with every 
other strongly marked gift which the wild things have 
won from nature, chiefly by desiring it, in the long 
years of their development. 

This theory may possibly account for some of 
Mooween's peculiarities. Nature, who measures her 
gifts according to the desires of her creatures, remem- 
bers his love of peace and solitude, and endows him 
accordingly. He cares little to see you or anybody 
else ; therefore his eyes are weak — his weakest point, 
in fact. He desires ardently to avoid your society 
and all society but his own; therefore his nose and 
ears are marvelously alert to discover your coming. 
Often, when you think yourself quite alone in the 
woods, Mooween is there. The wind has told your 
story to his nose; the clatter of your heedless feet 
long ago reached his keen ears, and he vanishes at 
your approach, leaving you to your noise and inquisi- 
tiveness and the other things you like. His gifts of 
concealment are so much greater than your powers of 
detection that he has absolutely no thought of ever 
seeing you. His surprise, therefore, when you do 
meet unexpectedly is correspondingly greater than 
yours. 

What he will do under the unusual circumstances 
depends largely, not upon himself, but upon you. 



When Tou Meet a Bear 61 

With one exception, his feelings are probably the 
reverse of your own. If you are bold, he is timid as 
a rabbit ; if you are panic-stricken, he knows exactly 
what to do; if you are fearful, he has no fear; if you 
are inquisitive, he is instantly shy* and, like all other 
wild creatures, he has an almost uncanny way of 
understanding your thought. It is as if, in that 
intent, penetrating gaze of his, he saw your soul 
turned inside out for his inspection. The only excep- 
tion is when you meet him without fear or curiosity, 
with the desire simply to attend to your own affairs, 
as if he were a stranger and an equal. That rare 
mental attitude he understands perfectly — for is it 
not his own ? — and he goes his way quietly, as if 
he had not seen you. 

For every chance meeting Mooween seems to have 
a plan of action ready, which he applies without a 
question or an instant's hesitation. Make an unknown 
sound behind him as he plods along the shore, and he 
hurls himself headlong into the cover of the bushes, 
as if your voice had touched a button that released a 
coiled spring beneath him. Afterwards he may come 
back to find out what frightened him. Sit perfectly 
still, and he rises on his hind legs for a look and a 
long sniff to find out who you are. Jump at him with 
a yell and a flourish the instant he appears, and he will 



62 . Wood Folk at School 

hurl chips and dirt back at you as he digs his toes 
into the hillside for a better grip and scrambles away 
whimpering like a scared puppy. 

Once in a way, as you steal through the autumn 
woods or hurry over the trail, you will hear sudden 
loud rustlings and shakings on the hardwood ridge 
above you, as if a small cyclone were perched there 
for a while, amusing itself among the leaves before 
blowing on. Then, if you steal up toward the sound, 
you will find Mooween standing on a big limb of a 
beech tree, grasping the narrowing trunk with his 
powerful forearms, tugging and pushing mightily to 
shake down the ripe beechnuts. The rattle and dash 
of the falling fruit are such music to Mooween's ears 
that he will not hear the rustle of your approach, nor 
the twig that snaps under your careless foot. 

If you cry aloud now to your friends, under the 
hilarious impression that you have Mooween sure at 
last, there is another surprise awaiting you. And that 
suggests a bit of advice, which is most pertinent: 
don't stand under the bear when you cry out. If he 
is a little fellow, he will shoot up the tree, faster than 
ever a jumping jack went up his stick, and hide in a 
cluster of leaves, as near the top as he can get. But if 
he is a big bear, he will tumble down on you before 
you know what has happened. No slow climbing for 



When You Meet a Bear 63 

him ; he just lets go and comes down by gravitation. 
As Uncle Remus says — who has some keen knowledge 
of animal ways under his story-telling humor — " Brer 
B'ar, he scramble 'bout half-way down de bee tree, en 
den he turn eve'ything loose en hit de groun' kerbiff ! 
Look like 't wuz nuff ter jolt de life out'n 'im." 

Somehow it never does jolt the life out of him, not- 
withstanding his great weight ; nor does it interfere in 
any way with his speed of action, which is like light- 
ning, the instant he touches the ground. Like the 
coon, who can fall from an incredible distance with- 
out hurting himself, Mooween comes down perfectly 
limp, falling on himself like a great cushion ; but the 
moment he strikes, all his muscles seem to contract at 
once, and he bounds off like a rubber ball into the 
densest bit of cover at hand. 

Twice have I seen him come down in this way. 
The first time there were two cubs, nearly full-grown, 
in a tree. One went up at our shout ; the other came 
down with such startling suddenness that the man 
who stood ready with his rifle, to shoot the bear, 
jumped for his life to get out of the way; and 
before he had blinked the astonishment out of his 
eyes Mooween was gone, leaving only a violent 
nodding of the ground spruces to tell what had 
become of him. 



64 Wood Folk at School 

All these plans of ready action in Mooween's head, 
for the rare occasions when he meets you unexpectedly, 
are the result of careful training by his mother. If 
you should ever have the good fortune to watch a 
mother bear and her cubs when they have no idea 
that you are near them, you will note two character- 
istic things. First, when they are traveling — and 
Mooween is the most restless tramp in all the woods 
— you will see that the cubs follow the mother closely 
and imitate her every action with ludicrous exactness, 
sniffing where she sniffs, jumping where she jumps, 
rising on their hind legs, with forearms hanging loosely 
and pointed noses thrust sharp up into the wind, on 
the instant that she rises, and then drawing silently 
away from the shore into the shelter of the friendly 
alders when some subtle warning tells the mother's 
nose that the coast ahead is not perfectly clear. So 
they learn to sift the sounds and smells of the wilder- 
ness, and to govern their actions accordingly. And 
second, when they are playing you will see that the 
mother watches the cubs' every action as keenly as 
they watched hers an hour ago. She will sit flat on 
her haunches, her fore paws planted between her out- 
stretched hind legs, her great head on one side, noting 
every detail of their boxing and wrestling and climbing, 
as if she had showed them once how it ought to be 



When Tou Meet a Bear 65 

done and were watching now to see how well they 
remembered their lessons. And now and then one 
or the other of the cubs receives a sound cuffing ; for 
which I am unable to account, except on the theory 
that he was doing something contrary to his plain 
instructions. 

It is only when Mooween meets some new object, 
or some circumstance entirely outside of his training, 
that instinct and native wit are set to work ; and then 
you see for the first time some trace of hesitation on 
the part of this self-confident prowler of the big woods. 
Once I startled him on the shore, whither he had come 
to get the fore quarters of a deer that had been left 
there. He jumped for cover at the first alarm without 
even turning his head, just as he had seen his mother 
do, a score of times, when he was a cub. Then he 
stopped, and for three or four seconds considered the 
danger in plain sight — a thing I have never seen any 
other bear imitate. He wavered for a moment more, 
doubtful whether my canoe were swifter than he and 
more dangerous. Then satisfied that, at least, he had 
a good chance, he jumped back, grabbed the deer, and 
dragged it away into the woods. 

Another time I met him on a narrow path where he 
could not pass me and where he did not want to turn 
back, for something ahead was calling him strongly. 



66 Wood Folk at School 

That short meeting furnished me the best study in 
bear nature and bear instinct that I have ever been 
allowed to make. And, at this distance, I have small 
desire to repeat the experience. 

It was on the Little Sou'west Mirimichi, a very wild 
river, in the heart of the wilderness. Just above my 
camp, not half a mile away, was a salmon pool that, so 
far as I know, had never been fished. One bank of 
the river was an almost sheer cliff, against which the 
current fretted and hissed in a strong deep rush to the 
rapids and a great silent pool far below. There were 
salmon under the cliff, plenty of them, balancing them- 
selves against the arrowy run of the current; but, so 
far as my flies were concerned, they might as well 
have been in the Yukon. One could not fish from 
the opposite shore — there was no room for a back 
cast, and the current was too deep and swift for wading 
— and on the shore where the salmon were there was 
no place to stand. If I had had a couple of good 
Indians, I might have dropped down to the head of 
the swift water and fished, while they held the canoe 
with poles braced on the bottom; but I had no two 
good Indians, and the one I did have was unwilling 
to take the risk. So we went hungry, almost within 
sight and sound of the plunge of heavy fish, fresh 
run from the sea. 



When Tou Meet a Bear 67 

One day, in following a porcupine to see where he 
was going, I found a narrow path running for a few 
hundred yards along the side of the cliff, just over 
where the salmon loved to lie, and not more than thirty 
feet above the swift rush of water. I went there with 
my rod and, without attempting to cast, dropped my 
fly into the current and paid out from my reel. When 
the line straightened I raised the rod's tip and set 
my fly dancing and skittering across the surface to 
an eddy behind a great rock. In a flash I had raised 
and struck a twenty-five pound fish ; and in another 
flash he had gone straight downstream in the cur- 
rent, where from my precarious seat I could not 
control him. Down he went, leaping wildly high out 
of water, in a glorious rush, till all my line buzzed 
out of the reel, down to the very knot at the bottom, 
and the leader snapped as if it had been made of 
spider's web. 

I reeled in sadly, debating with myself the unanswer- 
able question of how I should ever have reached down 
thirty feet to gaff my salmon, had I played him to a 
standstill. Then, because human nature is weak, I 
put on a stronger, double leader and dropped another 
fly into the current. I might not get my salmon; 
but it was worth the price of fly and leader just to 
raise him from the deeps and see his terrific rush 



68 Wood Folk at School 

downstream, jumping, jumping, as if the witch of Endor 
were astride of his tail in lieu of her broomstick. 

A lively young grilse plunged headlong at the second 
fly and, thanks to my strong leader, I played him out 
in the current and led him listlessly, all the jump and 
fight gone out of him, to the foot of the cliff. There 
was no apparent way to get down ; so, taking my line 
in hand, I began to lift him bodily up. He came easily 
enough till his tail cleared the water; then the wig- 
gling, jerky strain was too much. The fly pulled out, 
and he vanished with a final swirl and slap of his broad 
tail to tell me how big he was. 

Just below me a bowlder lifted its head and shoul- 
ders out of the swirling current. With the canoe line 
I might easily let myself down to that rock and make 
sure of my next fish. Getting back would be "harder; 
but salmon are worth some trouble; so I left my rod 
and started back to camp for the stout rope that lay 
coiled in the bow of my canoe. It was late afternoon 
and I was hurrying along the path, giving chief heed 
to my feet in the ticklish walking, with the cliff above 
and the river below, when a loud Hoowuff ! brought 
me up with a shock. There at a turn in the path, not 
ten yards ahead, stood a huge bear, calling unmistak- 
able halt, and blocking me in as completely as if the 
mountain had toppled over before me. 



When Tou Meet a Bear 69 

There was no time to think ; the shock and scare 
were too great. I just gasped Hoowuff ! instinctively, 
as the bear had shot it out of his deep lungs a moment 
before, and stood stock-still, as he was doing. He was 
startled as well as I. That was the only thing that I 
was sure about. 

I suppose that in each of our heads at first there 
was just one thought: " I 'm in a fix; how shall I get 
out ? " And in his training or mine there was abso- 
lutely nothing to suggest an immediate answer. He 
was anxious, evidently, to go on. Something, a mate 
perhaps, must be calling him up river ; else he would 
have whirled and vanished at the first alarm. But how 
far might he presume on the big animal's timidity who 
stood before him blocking the way ? That was his ques- 
tion, plainly enough. Had I been a moment sooner, 
or he a moment later, we would have met squarely at 
the turn ; he would have clinched with me in sudden 
blind ferocity, and that would have been the end of 
one of us. As it was he saw me coming heedlessly 
and, being peaceably inclined, had stopped me with his 
sharp Hoowuff ! before I should get too near. There 
was no snarl or growl, no savageness in his expression ; 
only intense wonder and questioning in the look which 
fastened upon my face and seemed to bore its way 
through, to find out just what I was thinking. 



70 Wood Folk at School 

I met his eyes squarely with mine and held them, 
which was perhaps the most sensible thing I could 
have done ; though it was all unconscious on my part. 
In the brief moment that followed I did a lot of think- 
ing. There was no escape, up or down ; I must go on 
or turn back. If I jumped forward with a yell, as I 
had done before under different circumstances, would 
he not rush at me savagely, as all wild creatures do 
when cornered ? No, the time for that had passed with 
the first instant of our meeting. The bluff would now 
be too apparent; it must be done without hesitation, 
or not at all. On the other hand, if I turned back he 
would follow me to the end of the ledge, growing 
bolder as he came on ; and beyond that it was danger- 
ous walking, where he had all the advantage and all 
the knowledge of his ground. Besides, it was late, and 
I wanted a salmon for my supper. 

I have wondered since how much of this hesitation 
he understood; and how he came to the conclusion, 
which he certainly reached, that I meant him no harm, 
but only wanted to get on and was not disposed to give 
him the path. All the while I looked at him steadily, 
until his eyes began to lose their intentness. My hand 
slipped back and gripped the handle of my hunting 
knife. Some slight confidence came with the feel of 
the heavy weapon ; though I would certainly have gone 



When Tou Meet a Bear 71 

over the cliff and taken my chances in the current, 
rather than have closed with him, with all his enormous 
strength, in that narrow place. Suddenly his eyes 
wavered from mine ; he swung his head to look down 
and up ; and I knew instantly that I had won the first 
move — and the path also, if I could keep my nerve. 

I advanced a step or two very quietly, still looking 
at him steadily. There was a suggestion of white teeth 
under his wrinkled chops; but he turned his head to 
look back over the way he had come, and presently he 
disappeared. It was only for a moment ; then his nose 
and eyes were poked cautiously by the corner of rock. 
He was peeking to see if I were still there. When 
the nose vanished again I stole forward to the turn 
and found him just ahead, looking down the cliff to 
see if there were any other way below. 

He was uneasy now; a low, whining growl came 
floating up the path. Then I sat down on a rock, 
squarely in his way, and for the first time some faint 
suggestion of the humor of the situation gave me a 
bit of consolation. I began to talk to him, not humor- 
ously, but as if he were a Scotchman and open only to 
argument. " You 're in a fix, Mooween, a terrible fix," 
. I kept saying softly ; " but if you had only stayed at 
home till twilight, as a bear ought to do, we should be 
happy now, both of us. You have put me in a fix, too, 



72 Wood Folk at School 

you see ; and now you 've just got to get me out of it. 
I 'm not going back. I don't know the path as well as 
you do. Besides, it will be dark soon, and I should 
probably break my neck. It 's a shame, Mooween, to 
put any gentleman in such a fix as I am in this minute, 
just by your blundering carelessness. Why did n't you 
smell me anyway, as any but a fool bear would have 
done, and take some other path over the mountain ? 
Why don't you climb that spruce now and get out of 
the way ? " 

I have noticed that all wild animals grow uneasy 
at the sound of the human voice, speaking however 
quietly. There is in it something deep, unknown, 
mysterious beyond all their powers of comprehension; 
and they go away from it quickly when they can. I 
have a theory also that all animals, wild and domestic, 
understand more of our mental attitude than we give 
them credit for ; and the theory gains rather than loses 
strength whenever I think of Mooween on that narrow 
pass. I can see him now, turning, twisting uneasily, 
and the half-timid look in his eyes as they met mine 
furtively, as if ashamed; and again the low, troubled 
whine comes floating up the path and mingles with 
the rush and murmur of the salmon pool below. 

A bear hates to be outdone quite as much as a fox 
does. If you catch him in a trap, he seldom growls 



When You Meet a Bear 73 

or fights or resists, as lynx and otter and almost all 
other wild creatures do. He has outwitted you and 
shown his superiority so often that he is utterly over- 
whelmed and crushed when you find him, at last, help- 
less and outdone. He seems to forget all his great 
strength, all his frightful power of teeth and claws. 
He just lays his head down between his paws, turns 
his eyes aside, and refuses to look at you or to let you 
see how ashamed he is. That is what you are chiefly 
conscious of, nine times out of ten, when you find a 
bear or a fox held fast in your trap ; and something of 
that was certainly in Mooween's look and actions now, 
as I sat there in his path enjoying his confusion. 

Near him a spruce tree sprang out of the rocks and 
reached upward to a ledge far above. Slowly he 
raised himself against this, but turned to look at me 
again sitting quietly in his own path — that he could 
no longer consider his — and smiling at his discom- 
fiture as I remember how ashamed he is to be out- 
done. Then an electric shock seemed to hoist him 
out of the trail. He shot up the tree in a succession 
of nervous, jerky jumps, rising with astonishing speed 
for so huge a creature, smashing the little branches, 
ripping the rough bark with his great claws, sending 
down a clattering shower of chips and dust behind 
him, till he reached the level of the ledge above and 



74 Wood Folk at School 

sprang out upon it; where he stopped and looked 
down to see what I would do next. And there he 
stayed, his great head hanging over the edge of the 
rock, looking at me intently till I rose and went 
quietly down the trail. 

It was morning when I came back to the salmon 
pool. Unlike the mossy forest floor, the hard rock 
bore no signs to tell me — what I was most curious 
to know — whether he came down the tree or found 
some other way over the mountain. At the point 
where I had stood when his deep Hoowuff ! first 
startled me I left a big salmon, for a taste of which 
any bear will go far out of his way. Next morning 
it was gone ; and so it may be that Mooween, on his 
next journey, found another and a pleasanter surprise 
awaiting him at the turn of the trail. 



0n 




SOMETIMES, at night, as you drift 
along the shore in your canoe, sifting 
the night sounds and smells of the wilderness, 
when all harsher cries are hushed and the )' 
silence grows tense and musical, like a great 
stretched chord over which the wind is thrumming 
low suggestive melodies, a sudden rush and flapping 
in the grasses beside you breaks noisily into the gamut 
of half-heard primary tones and rising, vanishing har- 
monics. Then, as you listen, and before the silence 
has again stretched the chords of her Eolian harp 
tight enough for the wind's fingers, another sound, 
a cry, comes floating down from the air — Quoskh ? 
quoskh-quoskh? a wild, questioning call, as if the 
startled night were asking who you are. It is only 
a blue heron, wakened out of his sleep on the shore 

75 



I i,. 



76 Wood Folk at School 

by your noisy approach, that you thought was still as 
the night itself. He circles over your head for a 
moment, seeing you perfectly, though you catch never 
a shadow of his broad wings ; then he vanishes into 
the vast, dark silence, crying Quoskh ? quoskk ? as he 
goes. And the cry, with its strange, wild interroga- 
tion vanishing away into the outer darkness, has given 
him his most fascinating Indian name, Quoskh the 
Night's Question. 

To many, indeed, even to some Indians, he has no 
other name and no definite presence. He rarely utters 
the cry by day — his voice then is a harsh croak — and 
you never see him as he utters it out of the solemn 
upper darkness ; so that there is often a mystery about 
this voice of the night, which one never thinks of asso- 
ciating with the quiet, patient, long-legged fisherman 
that one may see any summer day along the borders 
of lonely lake or stream. A score of times I have been 
asked by old campers, " What is that ? " as a sharp, 
questioning Quoskk-quoskk ? seemed to tumble down 
into the sleeping lake. Yet they knew the great blue 
heron perfectly — or thought they did. 

Quoskh has other names, however, which describe 
his attributes and doings. Sometimes, when fishing 
alongshore with my Indian at the paddle, the canoe 
would push its nose silently around a point, and I 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 77 

would see the heron's heavy slanting flight already 
halfway up to the tree-tops, long before our coming 
had been suspected by the watchful little mother shel- 
drake, or even by the deer feeding close at hand among 
the lily pads. Then Simmo, who could never surprise 
one of the great birds however silently he paddled, 
would mutter something which sounded like Quoskk 
K'sobeqh, Quoskh the Keen Eyed. At other times, 
when we noticed him spearing frogs with his long bill, 
Simmo, who could not endure the sight of a frog's leg 
on my fry pan, would speak of him disdainfully in his 
own musical language as Quoskh the Frog Eater, for 
my especial benefit. Again, if I stopped casting sud- 
denly at the deep trout pool opposite a grassy shore, to 
follow with my eyes a tall, gray-blue shadow on stilts 
moving dimly alongshore in seven-league-boot strides 
for the next bog, where frogs were plenty, Simmo would 
point with his paddle and say : " See, OV Fader Long- 
legs go catch-um more frogs for his babies. Funny 
kin' babies dat, eat-um bullfrog ; don' chu tink so ? " 

Of all his names — and there were many more that 
I picked up from watching him in a summer's outing 
— " Old Father Longlegs " seemed always the most 
appropriate. There is a suggestion of hoary antiquity 
about this solemn wader of our lakes and streams. 
Indeed, of all birds he is the nearest to those ancient, 



78 Wood Folk at School 

uncouth monsters which Nature made to people our 
earth in its uncouth infancy. Other herons and bit- 
terns have grown smaller and more graceful, with 
shorter legs and necks, to suit our diminishing rivers 
and our changed landscape. Quoskh is also, undoubt- 
edly, much smaller than he once was ; but still his legs 
and neck are disproportionately long, when one thinks 
of the waters he wades and the nest he builds ; and the 
tracks he leaves in the mud are startlingly like those 
fossilized footprints of giant birds that one finds in the 
rocks of the Pliocene era, deep under the earth's sur- 
face, to tell what sort of creatures lived in the vast 
solitudes before man came to replenish the earth and 
subdue it. 

Closely associated with this suggestion of antiquity 
in Quoskh's demeanor is the opposite suggestion of 
perpetual youth which he carries with him. Age has 
no apparent effect on him whatsoever. He is as old 
and young as the earth itself is; he is a March day, 
with winter and spring in its sunset and sunrise. Who 
ever saw a blue heron with his jewel eye dimmed or 
his natural force abated ? Who ever caught one sleep- 
ing, or saw him tottering weakly on his long legs, as 
one so often sees our common wild birds clinging 
feebly to a branch with their last grip ? A Cape Cod 
sailor once told me that, far out from land, his schooner 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 79 

had passed a blue heron lying dead on the sea with 
outstretched wings. That is the only heron that I 
have ever heard of who was found without all his wits 
about him. Possibly, if Quoskh ever dies, it may sug- 
gest a solution to the question of what becomes of 
him. With his last strength he may fly boldly out 
to explore that great ocean mystery, along the bor- 
ders of which his ancestors for untold centuries lived 
and moved, back and forth, back and forth, on their 
endless, unnecessary migrations, restless, unsatisfied, 
wandering, as if the voice of the sea were calling them 
whither they dared not follow. 

Just behind my tent on the big lake, one summer, a 
faint, woodsy little trail wandered away into the woods, 
with endless turnings and twistings, and without the 
faintest indication anywhere, till you reached the very 
end, whither it intended going. This little trail was 
always full of interesting surprises. Red squirrels 
peeked down at you over the edge of a limb, chatter- 
ing volubly and getting into endless mischief along its 
borders. Moose birds flitted silently over it on their 
mysterious errands. Now a jumping, smashing, crack- 
ling rush through the underbrush halts you suddenly, 
with quick beating heart, as you climb over one of 
the many windfalls across your path. A white flag 



8o Wood Folk at School 

followed by another little one, flashing, rising, sinking 
and rising again over the fallen timber, tells you that 
a doe and her fawn were lying behind the windfall, all 
unconscious of your quiet approach. Again, at a turn 
of the trail, something dark, gray, massive looms before 
you, blocking the faint path; and as you stop short 
and shrink behind the nearest tree, a huge head and 
antlers swing toward you, with widespread nostrils and 
keen, dilating eyes, and ears like two trumpets point- 
ing straight at your head — a bull moose, sh ! 

For a long two minutes he stands there motionless, 
watching the new creature that he has never seen 
before ; and it will be well for you to keep perfectly 
quiet and let him surrender the path when he is so 
disposed. Motion on your part may bring him nearer 
to investigate ; and you can never know at what slight 
provocation the red danger light will blaze into his 
eyes. At last he moves away, quietly at first, turning 
often to look and to make trumpets of his ears at you. 
Then he lays his great antlers back on his shoulders, 
sticks his nose far up ahead of him, and with long, 
smooth strides lunges away over the windfalls and 
is gone. 

So every day the little trail had some new surprise 
for you, — owl, or hare, or prickly porcupine rattling 
his quills, like a quiver of arrows, and proclaiming his 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 81 

Indian name, Unk-wunk! Unk-wunk ! as he loafed 
along. When you had followed far, and were sure that 
the loitering trail had certainly lost itself, it crept at last 
under a dark hemlock ; and there, through an oval frame 
of rustling, whispering green, was the loneliest, loveli- 
est little deer-haunted beaver pond in the world, where 
Quoskh lived with his mate and his little ones. 

The first time I came down the trail and peeked 
through the oval frame of bushes, I saw him ; and the 
very first glimpse made me jump at the thought of 
what a wonderful discovery I had made, namely, that 
little herons play with dolls, as children do. But I 
was mistaken. Quoskh had been catching frogs and 
hiding them, one by one, as I came along. He heard 
me before I knew he was there, and jumped for his 
last frog, a big fat one, with which he slanted up 
heavily on broad vans — with a hump on his back and 
a crook in his neck and his long legs trailing below 
and behind — towards his nest in the hemlock, beyond 
the beaver pond. When I saw him plainly he was 
just crossing the oval frame through which I looked. 
He had gripped the frog across the middle in his long 
beak, much as one would hold it with a pair of blunt 
shears, swelling it out at either side, like a string tied 
tight about a pillow. The head and short arms were 
forced up at one side, the limp legs dangled down on 



82 Wood Folk at School 

the other, looking for all the world like a stuffed rag 
doll that Quoskh was carrying home for his babies to 
play with. 

Undoubtedly they liked the frog much better; but 
my curious thought about them, in that brief romantic 
instant, gave me an interest in the little fellows which 
was not satisfied till I climbed to the nest, long after- 
wards, and saw them, and how they lived. 

When I took to studying Quoskh, so as to know 
him more intimately, I found a fascinating subject; 
not simply because of his queer ways, but also because 
of his extreme wariness and the difficulties I met in 
catching him doing things. Quoskh K'sobeqh was 
the name that at first seemed most appropriate, till I 
had learned his habits and how best to get the weather 
of him — which happened only two or three times in 
the course of a whole summer. 

One morning I went early to the beaver pond and 
sat down against a gray stump on the shore, with 
berry bushes growing to my shoulders all about me. 
" Now I shall keep still and see everything that comes," 
I thought, " and nothing, not even a blue jay, will 
see me." 

That was almost true. Little birds, that had never 
seen a man in the woods before, came for the berries 
and billed them off within six feet of my face before 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 83 

they noticed anything unusual. When they did see me 
they would turn their heads so as to look at me, first 
with one eye, then with the other, and shoot up at last, 
with a sharp Burr! of their tiny wings, to a branch 
over my head. There they would watch me keenly, 
for a wink or a minute, according to their curiosity, 
then swoop down and whirr their wings loudly in my 
face, so as to make me move and show what I was. 

Across a little arm of the pond, a stone's throw 
away, a fine buck came to the w r ater, put his muzzle 
into it, then began to fidget uneasily. Some vague, 
subtle flavor of me floated across and made him uneasy, 
though he knew not what I was. He kept tonguing his 
nostrils, as a cow does, so as to moisten them and catch 
the scent of me better. On my right, and nearer, a 
doe was feeding unconcernedly among the lily pads. 
A mink ran, hopping and halting, along the shore at 
my feet, dodging in and out among roots and rocks. 
Cheokhes always runs that way. He knows how glis- 
tening black his coat is, how shining a mark he makes 
for owl and hawk against the sandy shore ; and so he 
never runs more than five feet without dodging out of 
sight ; and he always prefers the roots and rocks that 
are blackest to travel on. 

A kingfisher dropped with his musical K'plop ! into 
the shoal of minnows that were rippling the water in 



84 Wood Folk at School 

their play just in front of me. Farther out, a fishhawk 
came down heavily, Souse ! and rose with a big chub. 
And none of these sharp-eyed wood folk saw me or 
knew that they were watched. Then a wide, wavy, 
blue line, like a great Cupid's bow, came gliding 
swiftly along the opposite bank of green, and Quoskh 
hove into sight for his morning's fishing. 

Opposite me, just where the buck had stood, he 
folded his great wings ; his neck crooked sharply ; his 
long legs, which had been trailed gracefully behind 
him in his swift flight, swung under him like two 
pendulums as he landed lightly on the muddy shore. 
He knew his ground perfectly; knew every stream 
and frog-haunted bay in the pond as one knows his 
own village ; yet no amount of familiarity with his 
surroundings can ever sing lullaby to Quoskh's watch- 
fulness. The instant he landed he drew himself up 
straight, standing almost as tall as a man, and let his 
keen glance run along every shore just once. His 
head, with its bright yellow eye and long yellow beak 
glistening in the morning light, veered and swung 
over his long neck like a gilded weather-vane on a 
steeple. As the vane swung up the shore toward me 
I held my breath, so as to be perfectly motionless, 
thinking I was hidden so well that no eye could find 
me at that distance. As it swung past me slowly I 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 85 

chuckled, thinking that Quoskh was deceived. I for- 
got altogether that a bird never sees straight ahead. 
When his bill had moved some thirty degrees off my 
nose, just enough so as to bring his left eye to bear, 
it stopped swinging instantly. — He had seen me at 
the first glance, and knew that I did not belong there. 

For a long moment, while his keen eye seemed to 
look through and through me, he never moved a muscle. 
One could easily have passed over him, thinking him 
only one of the gray, wave-w r ashed roots on the shore. 
Then he humped himself together, in that indescriba- 
bly awkward way that all herons have at the beginning 
of their flight, slanted heavily up to the highest tree 
on the shore, and stopped for a longer period on a 
dead branch to look back at me. I had not moved so 
much as an eyelid ; nevertheless he saw me too plainly 
to trust me. Again he humped himself, rose high 
over the tree-tops and bore away in strong, even, grace- 
ful flight for a lonelier lake, where there was no man 
to watch or bother him. 

Far from disappointing me, this keenness of Quoskh 
only whetted my appetite to know more about him, and 
especially to watch him, close at hand, at his fishing. 
Near the head of the little bay, where frogs were plenty, 
I built a screen of boughs under the low thick branches 
of a spruce tree, and went away to watch other wood folk. 



86 Wood Folk at School 

Next morning he did not come back ; nor were there 
any fresh tracks of his on the shore. This was my 
first intimation that Quoskh knows well the rule of 
good fishermen, and does not harry a pool or a place 
too frequently, however good the fishing. The third 
morning he came back ; and again the sixth evening ; 
and then the ninth morning, alternating with great 
regularity as long as I kept tabs on him. At other 
times I would stumble upon him far afield, fishing in 
other lakes and streams; or see him winging home- 
ward, high over the woods, from waters far beyond 
my ken; but these appearances were too irregular to 
count in a theory. I have no doubt, however, that 
he fished the near-by waters with as great regularity 
as he fished the beaver pond, and went wider afield 
only when he wanted a bit of variety, or bigger frogs, 
as all fishermen do; or when he had poor luck in 
satisfying the clamorous appetite of his growing brood. 

It was on the sixth afternoon that I had the best 
chance of studying his queer ways of fishing. I was 
sitting in my little blind at the beaver pond, waiting 
for a deer, when Quoskh came striding along the 
shore. He would swing his weather-vane head till he 
saw a frog ahead, then stalk him slowly, deliberately, 
with immense caution ; as if he knew as well as I how 
watchful the frogs are at his approach, and how quickly 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 87 

they dive headlong for cover at the first glint of his stilt- 
like legs. Nearer and nearer he would glide, standing 
motionless as a gray root when he thought his game 
was watching him ; then on again more cautiously, 
bending far forward and drawing his neck back to 
the angle of greatest speed and power for a blow. 
A quick start, a thrust like lightning — then you 
would see him shake his frog savagely, beat it upon 
the nearest stone or root, glide to a tuft of grass, hide 
his catch cunningly, and go on unincumbered for the 
next stalk, his weather-vane swinging, swinging in the 
ceaseless search for frogs, or possible enemies. 

If the swirl of a fish among the sedges caught his 
keen eye, he would change his tactics, letting his 
game come to him instead of stalking it, as he did 
with the frogs. Whatever his position was, both feet 
down or one foot raised for a stride, when the fish 
appeared, he never changed it, knowing w r ell that 
motion w 7 ould only send his game hurriedly into 
deeper water. He would stand sometimes for a half 
hour on one leg, letting his head sink slowly down 
on his shoulders, his neck curled back, his long sharp 
bill pointing always straight at the quivering line 
which marked the playing fish, his eyes half closed 
till the right moment came. Then you would see 
his long neck shoot down, hear the splash and, later, 



88 Wood Folk at School 

the whack of his catch against the nearest root, to 
kill it; and watch with curious feelings of sympathy 
as he hid it in the grass and covered it over, lest 
Hawahak the hawk should see, or Cheokhes the mink 
smell it, and rob him while he fished. 

If he were near his last catch, he would stride back 
and hide the two together ; if not, he covered it over 
in the nearest good place and went on. No danger 
of his ever forgetting, however numerous the catch ! 
Whether he counts his frogs and fish, or simply 
remembers the different hiding places, I have no 
means of knowing. 

Sometimes, when I surprised him on a muddy shore 
and he flew away without taking even one of his 
tidbits, I would follow his back track and uncover his 
hiding places to see what he had caught. Frogs, fish, 
pollywogs, mussels, a baby muskrat, — they were all 
there, each hidden cunningly under a bit of dried grass 
and mud. And once I went away and hid on the 
opposite shore to see if he would come back. After an 
hour or more he appeared, looking first at my tracks, 
then at all the shore with greater keenness than usual ; 
then he went straight to three different hiding places 
that I had found, and two more that I had not seen, 
and flew away to his nest, a fringe of frogs and fish 
hanging at either side of his long bill as he went. 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 89 

He had arranged them on the ground like the 
spokes of a wheel, as a fox does, heads all out on 
either side, and one leg or the tail of each crossed in 
a common pile in the middle ; so that he could bite 
down over the crossed members and carry the great- 
est number of little frogs and fish with the least likeli- 
hood of dropping any in his flight. 

The mussels which he found were invariably, I 
think, eaten as his own particular tidbits ; for I never 
saw him attempt to carry them away, though once I 
found two or three where he had hidden them. Gen- 
erally he could crack their shells easily by blows of his 
powerful beak, or by whacking them against a root; 
and so he had no need (and probably no knowledge) 
of the trick, which every gull knows, of mounting up 
to a height with some obstinate hardshell and drop- 
ping it on a rock to crack it. 

If Quoskh were fishing for his own dinner, instead 
of for his hungry nestlings, he adopted different tac- 
tics. For them he was a hunter, sly, silent, crafty, 
stalking his game by approved still-hunting methods ; 
for himself he was the true fisherman, quiet, observant, 
endlessly patient. He seemed to know that for him- 
self he could afford to take his time and be comfort- 
able, knowing that all things, especially fish, come to 
him who waits long enough ; while for his little ones 



90 Wood Folk at School 

he must hurry, else their croakings from too long fast- 
ing would surely bring hungry, unwelcome prowlers 
to the big nest in the hemlock. 

Once I saw him fishing in a peculiar way, which 
reminded me instantly of the chumming process with 
which every mackerel fisherman on the coast is famil- 
iar. He caught a pollywog for bait, with which he 
waded to a deep, cool place under a shady bank. 
There he whacked his pollywog into small bits and 
tossed them into the water, where the chum speedily 
brought a shoal of little fish to feed. Quoskh mean- 
while stood in the shadow, where he would not be 
noticed, knee-deep in water, his head drawn down into 
his shoulders, and a friendly leafy branch bending 
over him to screen him from prying eyes. As a fish 
swam up to his chum he would spear it like light- 
ning ; throw his head back and wriggle it head-first 
down his long neck ; then settle down to watch for the 
next one. And there he stayed, alternately watching 
and feasting, till he had enough ; when he drew his 
head farther down into his shoulders, shut his eyes, 
and went fast asleep in the cool shadows, — a perfect 
picture of fishing indolence and satisfaction. 

When I went to the nest and hid myself in the 
underbrush to watch, day after day, I learned more of 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 



9i 



Quoskh's fishing and hunting. The nest was in a 
great evergreen, in £ gloomy swamp, — a villainous 
place of bogs and treacherous footing, with here and 
there a little island of large trees. On one of these 
islands a small colony of herons were nesting. Dur- 
ing the day they trailed far afield, scattering widely, 
each pair to its own particular fishing grounds; but 
when the shadows grew long, and night prowlers 
stirred abroad, the herons came trailing back again, 
making curious, wavy, graceful lines 
athwart the sunset glow, to croak and 
be sociable together, and help each 
other watch the long night out. 
Quoskhnhe Watchful 
— I could tell my great 
bird's mate by sight or 
hearing from all others, 
either by her greater 
size or a peculiar 
double croak 
she had — had 
hidden her 
nest in the top 
of a great 
green hem- 
lock. Near 




92 Wood Folk at School 

by, in the high crotch of a dead tree, was another 
nest, which she had built, evidently, years before and 
added to each successive spring, only to abandon it 
at last for the evergreen. Both birds used to go to the 
old nest freely ; and I have wondered since if it were 
not a bit of great shrewdness on their part to leave it 
there in plain sight, where any prowler might see and 
climb to it; while the young were securely hidden, 
meanwhile, in the top of the near-by hemlock, wliere 
they could see without being seen. Only at a distance 
could you find the nest. When under the hemlock, 
the mass of branches screened it perfectly, and your 
attention was wholly taken by the other nest, standing 
out in bold relief in the dead tree-top. 

Such wisdom, if wisdom it were and not chance, is 
gained only by experience. It took at least one brood 
of young herons, sacrificed to the appetite of lucivee 
or fisher, to teach Quoskh the advantage of that decoy 
nest to tempt hungry prowlers upon the bare tree bole 
where she could have a clear field to spear them with 
her powerful bill and beat them dow r n with her great 
wings before they should discover their mistake. 

By watching the birds through my glass as they 
came to the young, I could generally tell what kind 
of game was afoot for their following. Once a long 
snake hung from the mother bird's bill ; once it was 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 93 

a bird of some kind ; twice she brought small animals, 
whose species I could not make out in the brief 
moment of alighting on the nest's edge, — all these 
besides the regular fare of fish and frogs, of which I 
took no account. And then, one day while I lay in 
my hiding, I saw the mother heron slide swdftly down 
from the nest, make a sharp wheel over the lake, and 
plunge into the fringe of berry bushes on the shore 
after some animal that her keen eyes had caught mov- 
ing. There was a swift rustling in the bushes, a blow 
of her wing to head off a runaway, tw 7 or three lightning 
thrusts of her javelin beak; then she rose heavily, tak- 
ing a leveret with her; and I saw her pulling it to pieces 
awkwardly on the nest to feed her hungry little ones. 

It was partly to see these little herons, the thought 
of which had fascinated me ever since I had seen 
Quoskh taking home what I thought, at first glance, 
was a rag doll for them to play with, and partly to 
find out more of Quoskh's hunting habits by seeing 
what he brought home, that led me at last to undertake 
the difficult task of climbing the huge tree to the nest. 
One day when the mother had brought home some 
unknown small animal — a mink, I thought — I came 
suddenly out of my hiding and crossed over to the 
nest. It had always fascinated me. Under it, at twi- 
light, I had heard the mother heron croaking softly to 



94 Wood Folk at School 

her little ones — a husky lullaby, but sweet enough to 
them — and then, as I paddled away, I would see the 
nest dark against the sunset with Mother Quoskh 
standing over it, a tall, graceful silhouette against the 
glory of twilight, keeping sentinel watch over her 
little ones. Now I would solve the mystery of the 
high nest by looking into it. 

The mother, alarmed by my sudden appearance, — 
she had no idea that she had been watched, — shot 
silently away, hoping I would not notice her home 
through the dense screen of branches. I climbed up 
with difficulty ; but not till I was within ten feet could 
I make out the mass of sticks above me. The surround- 
ings were getting filthy and evil-smelling by this time ; 
for Quoskh teaches the young herons to keep their 
nest perfectly clean by throwing all refuse over the 
sides of the great home. A dozen times I had watched 
the mother birds of the colony push their little ones 
to the edge of the nest to teach them this rule of clean- 
liness, so different from most other birds. 

As I hesitated about pushing through the filth- 
laden branches, something bright on the edge of the 
nest caught my attention. It was a young heron's 
eye looking down at me over a long bill, watching my 
approach with a keenness that was but thinly disguised 
by the half-drawn eyelids. I had to go round the tree 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 



95 



at this point for a standing on a larger branch ; and 
when I looked up, there was another eye watching 
down over another long bill. So, however I turned, 
they watched me closely getting nearer and nearer, till I 
reached up my hand to touch the nest. Then there was 
a harsh croak. Three long necks reached down sud- 
denly over the edge of the nest on the side where I 
was; three long bills opened wide just over my head; 
and three young herons grew suddenly seasick, as if 
they had swallowed ipecac. 

I never saw the inside of that home. At the moment 
I was in too much of a hurry to get down and wash in 
the lake; and after that, so large were 
the young birds, so keen and power- 
ful the beaks, that no man or beast 
might expect to look over the edge of 
the nest, with hands 
in holding on, and 1 
eyes for a 
single in- 
stant. It is 
more y 
dangerous 
to climb for 
young 
herons ' A 



k?r^ 




96 Wood Folk at School 

than for young eagles. A heron always strikes for 
the eye, and his blow means blindness or death, unless 
you watch like a cat and ward it off. 

When I saw the young again they were taking 
their first lessons. A dismal croaking in the tree-tops 
attracted me, and I came over cautiously to see what 
my herons were doing. The young were standing up 
on the big nest, stretching necks and wings, and croak- 
ing hungrily; while the mother stood on a tree-top 
some distance away, showing them food and telling 
them plainly, in heron language, to come and get it. 
They tried it after much coaxing and croaking ; but 
their long, awkward toes missed their hold upon the 
slender branch on which she w r as balancing delicately 
— just as she expected it to happen. As they fell, 
flapping lustily, she shot down ahead of them and led 
them in a long, curving slant to an open spot on the 
shore. There she fed them with the morsels she held 
in her beak ; brought more food from a tuft of grass 
where she had hidden it, near at hand ; praised them 
with gurgling croaks till they felt some confidence on 
their awkward legs ; then the whole family started up 
the shore on their first frogging expedition. 

It was intensely interesting for a man who, as a 
small boy, had often gone .a-frogging himself — to 
catch big ones for a woodsy corn roast, or little ones 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 97 

for pickerel bait — to sit now on a bog and watch the 
little herons try their luck. Mother Quoskh went 
ahead cautiously, searching the lily pads ; the young 
trailed behind her awkwardly, lifting their feet like a 
Shanghai rooster and setting them down with a splash 
to scare every frog within hearing, exactly where the 
mother's foot had rested a moment before. So they 
went on, the mother's head swinging like a weather- 
vane to look far ahead, the little ones stretching their 
necks so as to peek by her on either side, full of won- 
der at the new world, full of hunger for things that 
grew there, till a startled young frog said K ' tung ! 
from behind a lily bud, where they did not see him, and 
dove headlong into the mud, leaving a long, crinkly, 
brown trail to tell exactly how far he had gone. 

A frog is like an ostrich. When he sees nothing, 
because his head is hidden, he thinks nothing can see 
him. At the sudden alarm Mother Quoskh would 
stretch her neck, watching the frog's flight ; then turn 
her head so that her long bill pointed directly at the 
bump on the muddy bottom, which marked the hiding 
place of Chigwooltz, and croak softly as a signal. At 
the sound one of the young herons would hurry for- 
ward eagerly ; follow his mother's bill, which remained 
motionless, pointing all the while ; twist his head till 
he saw the frog's back in the mud, and then lunge 



98 Wood Folk at School 

at it like lightning. Generally he got his frog, and 
through your glass you would see the unfortunate 
creature wriggling and kicking his way into Quoskh's 
yellow beak. If the lunge missed, the mother's keen 
eye followed the frog's frantic rush through the mud, 
with a longer trail this time behind him, till he hid 
again ; whereupon she croaked the same youngster up 
for another try, and then the whole family moved 
jerkily along, like a row of boys on stilts, to the next 
clump of lily pads. 

As the young grew older and stronger on their legs, 
I noticed the rudiments, at least, of a curious habit of 
dancing, which seems to belong to most of our long- 
legged wading birds. Sometimes, sitting quietly in 
my canoe, I would see the young birds sail down in a 
long slant to the shore. Immediately on alighting, 
before they gave any thought to frogs or fish or 
carnal appetite, they would hop up and down, bal- 
ancing, swaying, spreading their wings, and hopping 
again round about each other, as if bewitched. A 
few moments of this crazy performance, and then they 
would stalk sedately along the shore, as if ashamed 
of their ungainly levity; but at any moment the 
ecstasy might seize them and they would hop again, 
as if they simply could not help it. This occurred 
generally towards evening, when the birds had fed full 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 



99 



and were ready for play or for stretching their broad 
wings in preparation for the long autumn flight. 

Watching them, one evening, I remembered sud- 
denly a curious scene that I had stumbled upon when 
a boy. I had seen a great blue heron sail croaking, 
croaking, into an arm of the big pond where I was 
catching bullpouts, and crept down through dense 
woods to find out what he was croaking about. 
Instead of one, I found eight or ten of the great birds 
on an open shore, hopping ecstatically through some 
kind of a crazy dance. A twig snapped as I crept 
nearer, and they scattered in instant flight. It was 
September, and the instinct to flock and to migrate 
was at work among them. When they came together 
for the first time some dim, old remembrance of gen- 
erations long gone by — the shreds of an ancient 
instinct, whose meaning 
we can only guess at — 
had set them to dancing 
wildly ; though I doubted 
at the time whether they 
understood much what 
they were doing. 

Perhaps I was wrong 
in this. Watching the 
young birds at their 




Lofi 



ioo Wood Folk at School 

ungainly hopping, the impulse to dance seemed uncon- 
trollable; yet they were immensely dignified about it 
at times; and again they appeared to get some fun 
out of it — as much, perhaps, as we do out of some of 
our peculiar dances, of which a visiting Chinaman 
once asked innocently : " Why don't you let your 
servants do it for you ? " 

I have seen little green herons do the same thing in 
the woods at mating time ; and once, in the Zoologi- 
cal Gardens at Antwerp, I saw a magnificent hopping 
performance by some giant cranes from Africa. Our 
own sand-hill and whooping cranes are notorious 
dancers ; and undoubtedly it is more or less instinctive 
with all the tribes of the cranes and herons, from the 
least to the greatest. But what the instinct means 
— unless, like our own dancing, it is a pure bit of 
pleasure-making, as crows play games and loons swim 
races — nobody can tell. 

Before the young were fully grown, and while yet 
they were following the mother to learn the ways of 
frogging and fishing, a startling thing occurred which 
made me ever afterwards look up to Quoskh with 
honest admiration. I was still-fishing in the middle 
of the big lake, one late afternoon, when Quoskh and 
her little ones sailed over the trees from the beaver 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 101 

pond and lit on a grassy shore. A shallow little brook 
stole into the lake there, and Mother Quoskh left her 
young to frog for themselves, while she went fishing 
up the brook under the alders. I was watching the 
young herons through my glass when I saw 7 a sudden 
rush in the tall grass near them. All three humped 
themselves, heron fashion, on the instant. Two got 
away safely; the other had barely spread his wings 
when a black animal leaped out of the grass for his 
neck and pulled him down, flapping and croaking 
desperately. 

I pulled up my killick on the instant and paddled 
over to see what was going on, and what the creature 
was that had leaped out of the grass. Before my pad- 
dle had swung a dozen strokes I saw the alders by the 
brook open swiftly, and Mother Quoskh sailed out and 
drove like an arrow straight at the struggling wing 
tips, which still flapped spasmodically above the grass. 
Almost before her feet had dropped to a solid landing 
she struck two fierce, blinding, downward blows of 
her great wings. Her neck curved back and shot 
straight out, driving the keen six-inch bill before it, 
quicker than ever a Roman arm drove its javelin. 
Above the lap-lap of my canoe I heard a savage cry 
of pain; the same black animal leaped up out of the 
tangled grass, snapping for the neck ; and a desperate 



102 Wood Folk at School 

battle began, with short gasping croaks and snarls 
that made caution unnecessary as I sped over to see 
who the robber was, and how Quoskh was faring in 
the good fight. 

The canoe shot up behind a point where, looking 
over the low bank, I had the arena directly under my 
eye. The animal was a fisher — black-cat the trappers 
call him — the most savage and powerful fighter of 
his size in the whole world, I think. In the instant 
that I first saw him, quicker than thought he had 
hurled himself twice at the towering bird's breast. 
Each time he was met by a lightning blow in the face 
from Quoskh's stiffened wing. His teeth ground the 
big quills to pulp; his claws tore them into shreds; 
but he got no grip in the feathery mass, and he slipped, 
clawing and snarling, into the grass, only to spring 
again like a flash. Again the stiff wing blow; but 
this time his jump was higher; one claw gripped the 
shoulder, tore its way through flying feathers to the 
bone, while his weight dragged the big bird down. 
Then Quoskh shortened her neck in a great curve. 
Like a snake it glided over the edge of her own wing 
for two short, sharp down-thrusts of the deadly javelin 
— so quick that my eye caught only the double yellow 
flash of it. With a sharp screech the black-cat leaped 
away and whirled towards me blindly. One eye was 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 103 

gone; an angry red welt showed just over the other, 
telling how narrowly the second thrust had missed 
its mark. 

A shiver ran over me as I remembered how nearly 
I had once come myself to the black-cat's condition, 
and from the same keen weapon. I was a small boy 
at the time, following a big, good-natured hunter that 
I met in the woods, one day, from pure love of the 
wilds and for the glory of carrying the game bag. He 
shot a great blue heron, which fell with a broken wing 
into some soft mud and water grass. Carelessly he 
sent me to fetch it, not caring to wet his own feet. 
As I ran up, the heron lay resting quietly, his neck 
drawn back, his long keen bill pointing always straight 
at my face. I had never seen so big a bird before, 
and bent over him wondering at his long bill, admir- 
ing his intensely bright eye. 

I did not know then — what I have since learned well 
— that you can always tell w 7 hen the rush or spring or 
blow of any beast or bird — or of any man, for that 
matter — will surely come by watching the eye closely. 
There is a fire that blazes in the eye before the blow 
comes, before ever a muscle has stirred to do the 
brain's quick bidding. As I bent over, fascinated by 
the keen, bright look of the wounded bird, and reached 
down my hand to pick him up, there was a flash deep 



104 Wood Folk at School 

in the eye, like the glint of sunshine from a mirror, 
and I dodged instinctively. " Well for me that I did 
so. Something shot by my face like lightning, open- 
ing up a long red gash across my left temple from eye- 
brow to ear. As I jumped I heard a careless laugh. 
" Look out, Sonny, he may bite you — Gosh ! what 
a close call ! " And with a white, scared face, as 
he saw the ugly wound that the heron's beak had 
opened, he dragged me away as if there had been a 
bear in the water grass. 

The black-cat had not yet received punishment 
enough. He is one of the largest of the weasel fam- 
ily, and has a double measure of the weasel's savage- 
ness and tenacity. He darted about the heron in a 
quick, nervous, jumping circle, looking for an opening 
behind ; while Quoskh lifted her great torn wings as a 
shield and turned slowly on the defensive, so as always 
to face the danger. A dozen times the fisher jumped, 
filling the air with feathers ; a dozen times the stiffened 
wings struck down to intercept his spring, and every 
blow was followed by a swift javelin thrust. Then, 
as the fisher crouched snarling in the grass, off his 
guard for an instant, I saw Mother Quoskh take a 
sudden step forward, her first offensive move — just 
as I had seen her twenty times at the finish of a frog 
stalk — and her bill shot down with the whole power 




*-"'■••. 



'A DOZEN TIMES THE FISHER JUMPED 
FILLING THE AIR WITH FEATHERS " 



^uoskh the Keen Eyed 105 

of her long neck behind it. A harsh screech of pain 
followed the swift blow ; then the fisher wobbled away 
with blind, uncertain jumps towards the shelter of 
the woods. 

And now, with her savage enemy in full flight, a 
fierce, hot anger seemed to flare within the mother 
heron, burning out all the previous cool, calculating 
defense. Her wings heaved aloft, as the soldiers of old 
threw up their shields in the moment of victory; while 
her whole frame seemed to swell with power, like a 
hero whose fight is won. She darted after the fisher, 
first on the run, then with heavy wing beats, till she 
headed him and with savage blows of pinion and beak 
drove him back, seeing nothing, guided only by fear 
and instinct, towards the water. For five minutes 
more she chevied him hither and yon through the 
trampled grass, driving him from water to bush and 
back again, jabbing him at every turn ; till a rustle of 
leaves invited him, and he dashed blindly into thick 
underbrush, where her broad wings could not follow. 
Then with marvelous watchfulness she saw me stand- 
ing near in my canoe ; and without a thought, appar- 
ently, for the young heron lying so still in the 
grass close beside her, she spread her torn wings 
and flapped away heavily in the path of her more 
fortunate younglings. 



io6 



Wood Folk at School 



I followed the fisher's trail into the woods and found 
him curled up in a hollow stump. He made slight 
resistance as I pulled him out. All his ferocity was 
already lulled to sleep in the vague, dreamy numbness 
which Nature always sends to her stricken creatures. 
He suffered nothing, apparently, though he was fear- 
fully wounded; he just wanted to be let 
alone. Both eyes were gone, and there 
was nothing left for me except to finish 
mercifully what little Quoskh had left 
n \ JjL$fi\ _^-— — - undone. 




V 



^>. 






■i'if 



When September came, and 
family cares were over, the colony 
beyond the beaver pond scattered 
widely, returning each one to the 
shy, wild, solitary life that Quoskh 
likes best. Almost anywhere, in 
the loneliest places, I might come 
upon a solitary heron stalking 
frogs, or chumming little fish, or 
treading the soft mud expectantly, 
like a clam digger, to find where the 



u i 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 107 

mussels were hidden by means of his long toes ; 
or just standing still to enjoy the sleepy sunshine 
till the late afternoon came, when he likes best to 
go abroad. 

They slept no more on the big nest, standing like 
sentinels against the twilight glow and the setting 
moon; but each one picked out a good spot on the 
shore and slept as best he could on one leg, waiting 
for the early fishing. It was astonishing how carefully 
even the young birds picked out a safe position. By 
day they would stand like statues in the shade of a 
bank or among the tall grasses, where they were almost 
invisible by reason of their soft colors, and wait for 
hours for fish and frogs to come to them. By night 
each one picked out a spot on the clean open shore, 
off a point, generally, where he could see up and 
down, where there was no grass to hide an enemy, and 
where the bushes on the bank were far enough away 
so that he could hear the slight rustle of leaves before 
the creature that made it was within springing dis- 
tance. And there he would sleep safe through the 
long night, unless disturbed by my canoe or by some 
other prowler. Herons see almost as well by night 
as by day, and their ears are keen as a weasel's ; so I 
could never get near enough to surprise them, how- 
ever silently I paddled. I would hear only a startled 



108 Wood Folk at School 

rush of wings, and then a questioning call as they sailed 
over me before winging away to quieter beaches. 

If I were jacking, with a light blazing brightly 
before me in my canoe, to see what night folk I might 
surprise on the shore, Quoskh was the only one for 
whom my jack had no fascination. Deer and moose, 
foxes and wild ducks, frogs and fish, — all seemed 
equally charmed by the great wonder of a light shining 
silently out of the vast darkness. I saw them all, at 
different times, and glided almost up to them before 
timidity drove them away from the strange bright 
marvel. But Quoskh was not to be watched in that 
way, nor to be caught by any such trick. I would see 
a vague form on the far edge of the light's pathway; 
catch the bright flash of either eye as he swung his 
weather-vane head; then the vague form would slide 
into the upper darkness. A moment's waiting; then, 
above me and behind, where the light did not dazzle 
his eyes, I would hear his night cry — with more of 
anger than of questioning in it — and as I turned the 
jack upward I would catch a single glimpse of his 
broad wings sailing over the lake. Nor would he ever 
come back, like the fox on the bank, for a second look 
to be quite sure what I was. 

When the bright, moonlit nights came, there was 
uneasiness in Quoskh's wild breast. The solitary life 



Quoskh the Keen Eyed 109 

that he loves best claimed him by day; but at night the 
old gregarious instinct drew him again to his fellows. 
Once, when drifting over the beaver pond through the 
delicate witchery of the moonlight, I heard five or six 
of the great birds croaking excitedly at the heronry, 
which they had deserted weeks before. The lake, and 
especially the lonely little pond at the end of the trail, 
was lovelier than ever before; but something in the 
south was calling him away. I think that Quoskh was 
also moonstruck, as so many wild creatures are; for, 
instead of sleeping quietly on the shore, he spent his 
time circling aimlessly over the lake and woods, crying 
his name aloud, or calling wildly to his fellows. 

At midnight of the day before I broke camp, I was 
out on the lake for a last paddle in the moonlight. 
The night was perfect, — clear, cool, intensely still. 
Not a ripple broke the great burnished surface of the 
lake ; a silver pathway stretched away and away over 
the bow of my gliding canoe, leading me on to where 
the great forest stood, silent, awake, expectant, and 
flooded through all its dim, mysterious arches with 
marvelous light. The wilderness never sleeps. If it 
grow silent, it is to listen. To-night the woods were 
tense as a waiting fox, watching to see what new thing 
would come out of the lake, or what strange mystery 
would be born under their own soft shadows. 



I IO 



Wood Folk at School 



Quoskh was abroad too, bewitched by the moon- 
light. I heard him calling and paddled down. He 
knew me long before he was anything more to me 
than a voice of the night, and swept up to meet me. 
For the first time after darkness fell % I saw him — just 
a vague, gray shadow with edges touched softly with 
silver light, which whirled once over my canoe and 

^^r looked down into it. 
........ ••'^#\ Then he vanished; 

/ and from far over on 
the edge of the wait- 
ing woods, where the 
mystery was deepest, came a cry, 
a challenge, a riddle, the night's 
wild question which no man has 
ever yet answered — Quoskh? 
quoskh ? 





/, / 



iAMU 



n l 





RUSTLING in the brakes just out- A|w 
side my little tent roused me from a I ' 



light slumber. There it was again! J^HJ/ 
the push of some heavy animal trying to move T 
noiselessly through the tangle close at hand; J 
while from the old lumber camp in the midst of 
the clearing a low gnawing sound floated up through 
the still night. I sat up quickly to listen ; but at the 
slight movement all was quiet again. The night 
prowlers had heard me and were on their guard. 

One need have no fear of things that come round 
in the night. They are much shyer than you are, and 
can see you better; so that, if you blunder towards 
them, they mistake your blindness for courage, and 
take to their heels promptly. As I stepped out there 



"v 



1 1 2 Wood Folk at School 

was a double rush in some bushes behind my tent, 
and by the light of a half-moon I caught one glimpse 
of a bear and her cub jumping away for the shelter of 
the woods. 

The gnawing still went on behind the old shanty 
by the river. "Another cub!" I thought — for I was 
new to the big woods — and stole down to peek by 
the corner of the camp, in whose yard I had pitched 
my tent the first night out in the wilderness. 

There was an old molasses hogshead lying just 
beyond the log camp, its mouth looking black as ink 
in the moonlight, and the scratching-gnawing sounds 
went on steadily within its shadow. " He 's inside," I 
thought with elation, " scraping off the crusted sugar. 
Now to catch him ! " 

I stole round the camp, so as to bring the closed 
end of the hogshead between me and the prize, crept 
up breathlessly, and with a quick jerk hove the old tub 
up on end, trapping the creature inside. There was a 
thump, a startled scratching and rustling, a violent 
rocking of the hogshead, which I tried to hold down ; 
then all was silent in the trap. " I ve got him ! " I 
thought, forgetting all about the old she-bear, and 
shouted for Simmo to wake up and bring the ax. 

We drove a ring of stakes close about the hogshead, 
weighted it down with heavy logs, and turned in to 



Unk Wunk the Porcupine 1 1 3 

sleep. In the morning, with cooler judgment, we 
decided that a bear cub was too troublesome a pet to 
keep in a tent ; so I stood by with a rifle while Simmo 
hove off the logs and cut the stakes, keeping a wary 
eye on me, meanwhile, to see how far he might trust 
his life to my nerve in case the cub should be big and 
troublesome ; for an Indian takes no chances. A stake 
fell ; the hogshead toppled over by a push from within ; 
Simmo sprang away with a yell ; and out wobbled a 
big porcupine, the biggest I ever saw, and tumbled away 
straight towards my tent. After him went the Indian, 
making sweeping cuts at the stupid thing w r ith his ax, 
and grunting his derision at my bear cub. 

Halfway to the tent Unk Wunk stumbled across a 
bit of pork rind, and stopped to nose it daintily. I 
caught Simmo's arm and stayed the blow that would 
have made an end of my catch. Then, between us, 
Unk Wunk sat up on his haunches, took the pork in 
his fore paws and sucked the salt out of it, as if he had 
never a concern and never an enemy in the wide world. 
A half hour later he loafed into my tent, where I sat 
repairing a favorite salmon fly that some hungry sea- 
trout had torn to tatters, and drove me unceremoniously 
out of my own bailiwick in his search for more salt. 

Such a philosopher, whom no prison can dispossess 
of his peace of mind, and whom no danger can deprive 



ii4 Wood Folk at School 

of his simple pleasures, deserves more consideration 
than the naturalists have ever given him. I resolved 
on the spot to study him more carefully. As if to dis- 
courage all such attempts and make himself a target for 
my rifle, he nearly spoiled my canoe the next night by 
gnawing a hole through the bark and ribs for some 
suggestion of salt that only his greedy nose could 
possibly have found. 

Once I found him on the trail, some distance from 
camp, and, having nothing better to do, I attempted to 
drive him home. My intention was to share hospitality; 
to give him a bit of bacon, and then study him as I ate 
my own dinner. He turned at the first suggestion of 
being driven, came straight at my legs, and by a vicious 
slap of his tail left some of his quills in me before I 
could escape. Then I drove him in the opposite direc- 
tion, whereupon he turned and bolted past me; and 
when I arrived at camp he was busily engaged in 
gnawing the end from Simmo's ax handle. 

However you take him, Unk Wunk is one of the 
mysteries. He is a perpetual question scrawled across 
the forest floor, which nobody pretends to answer; a 
problem that grows only more puzzling as you study to 
solve it. 

Of all the wild creatures he is the only one that has 
no intelligent fear of man, and that never learns, either 



Unk Wunk the Porcupine 1 1 5 

by instinct or experience, to avoid man's presence. He 
is everywhere in the wilderness, until he changes what 
he would call his mind ; and then he is nowhere, and 
you cannot find him. He delights in solitude, and 
cares not for his own kind ; yet now and then you will 
stumble upon a whole convention of porcupines at the 
base of some rocky hill, each one loafing around, rat- 
tling his quills, grunting his name Unk Wunk ! Unk 
Wunk ! and doing nothing else all day long. 

You meet him to-day, and he is timid as a rabbit ; 
to-morrow he comes boldly into your tent and drives 
you out, if you happen to be caught without a club 
handy. He never has anything definite to do, nor any 
place to go to; yet stop him at any moment and he 
will risk his life to go just a foot farther. Now try to 
drive or lead him another foot in the same direction, 
and he will bolt back, as full of contrariness as two 
pigs on a road, and let himself be killed rather than go 
where he was heading a moment before. He is per- 
fectly harmless to every creature ; yet he lies still and 
kills the savage fisher that attacks him, or even the 
big Canada lynx, that no other creature in the woods 
would dare to tackle. 

Above all these puzzling contradictions is the prime 
question of how Nature ever produced such a creature, 
and what she intended doing with him ; for he seems 



1 1 6 Wood Folk at School 

to have no place nor use in the natural economy of 
things. Recently the Maine legislature has passed a 
bill forbidding the shooting of porcupines, on the 
curious ground that he is the only wild animal that can 
easily be caught and killed without a gun ; so that a 
man lost in the woods need not starve to death but may 
feed on porcupine, as the Indians sometimes do. This 
is the only suggestion thus far, from a purely utilitarian 
standpoint, that Unk Wunk is no mistake, but may 
have his uses. 

Once, to test the law and to provide for possible 
future contingencies, I added Unk Wunk to my bill of 
fare — a vile, malodorous suffix that might delight a 
lover of strong cheese. It is undoubtedly a good law ; 
but I cannot now imagine any one being grateful for it, 
unless the stern alternative were death or porcupine. 

The prowlers of the woods would eat him gladly 
enough, but that they are sternly forbidden. They 
cannot even touch him without suffering the conse- 
quences. It would seem as if Nature, when she made 
this block of stupidity in a world of wits, provided for 
him tenderly, as she would for a half-witted or idiot 
child. He is the only wild creature for whom starva- 
tion has no terrors. All the forest is his storehouse. 
Buds and tender shoots delight him in their season; 
and when the cold becomes bitter in its intensity, and 



Unk Wunk the Porcupine 1 1 7 

the snow packs deep, and all other creatures grow 
gaunt and savage in their hunger, Unk Wunk has only 
to climb the nearest tree, chisel off the rough, outer 
shell with his powerful teeth, and then feed full on the 
soft inner layer of bark, which satisfies him perfectly 
and leaves him as fat as an alderman. 

Of hungry beasts Unk Wunk has no fear whatever. 
Generally they let him severely alone, knowing that to 
touch him would be more foolish than to mouth a sun- 
fish or to bite a Peter-grunter. If, driven by hunger in 
the killing March days, they approach him savagely, 
he simply rolls up and lies still, protected by an armor 
that only a steel glove might safely explore, and that 
has no joint anywhere visible to the keenest eye. 

Now and then some cunning lynx or weasel, wise 
from experience but desperate with hunger, throws 
himself flat on the ground, close by Unk Wunk, and 
works his nose cautiously under the terrible bur, search- 
ing for the neck or the underside of the body, where 
there are no quills. One grip of the powerful jaws, one 
taste of blood in the famished throat of the prowler — 
and that is the end of both animals. For Unk Wunk 
has a w r eapon that no prowler of the woods ever calcu- 
lates upon. His broad, heavy tail is armed with hun- 
dreds of barbs, smaller but more deadly than those on 
his back ; and he swings this weapon with the vicious 



1 1 8 Wood Folk at School 

sweep of a rattlesnake. It is probably this power of 
driving his barbs home by a lightning blow of his tail 
that has given rise to the curious delusion that Unk 
Wunk can shoot his quills at a distance, as if he 
were filled with compressed air — which is, of course, a 
harmless absurdity that keeps people from meddling 
with him too closely. 

Sometimes, when attacked, Unk Wunk covers his 
face with this weapon. More often he sticks his head 
under a root or into a hollow log, leaving his tail out 
ready for action. At the first touch of his enemy 
the tail snaps right and left quicker than thought, 
driving the hostile head and sides full of the deadly 
quills, from which there is no escape ; for every effort, 
every rub and writhe of pain, only drives them deeper 
and deeper, till they rest in heart or brain and finish 
their work. 

Mooween the bear is the only one of the wood folk 
who has learned the trick of attacking Unk Wunk 
without injury to himself. If, when very hungry, he 
finds a porcupine, he never attacks him directly, — he 
knows too well the deadly sting of the barbs for that, 
— but bothers and irritates the porcupine by flipping 
earth at him, until at last Unk Wunk rolls all his 
quills outward and lies still. Then Mooween, with 
immense caution, slides one paw under him and with 




WJ*" 



'BOTHERS AND IRRITATES THE PORCUPINE 
BY FLIPPING EARTH AT HIM" 



Unk Wunk the Porcupine 1 1 9 

a quick flip hurls him against the nearest tree, and 
knocks the life out of him. 

If he find Unk Wunk in a tree, he will sometimes 
climb after him and, standing as near as the upper 
limbs allow, will push and tug mightily to shake him 
off. That is usually a vain attempt ; for the creature 
that sleeps sound and secure through a gale in the 
tree-tops has no concern for the ponderous shakings 
of a bear. In that case Mooween, if he can get 
near enough without risking a fall from too delicate 
branches, will wrench off the limb on which Unk 
Wunk is sleeping and throw it to the ground. That 
also is usually a vain proceeding; for before Mooween 
can scramble down after his game, Unk Wunk is 
already up another tree and sleeping, as if nothing 
had happened, on another branch. 

Othgr prowlers, with less strength and cunning 
than Mooween, fare badly when driven by famine to 
attack this useless creature of the w r oods, for whom 
Nature nevertheless cares so tenderly. Trappers have 
told me that in the late winter, when hunger is sharp- 
est, they sometimes catch a wild-cat or lynx or fisher 
in their traps with his mouth and sides full of porcu- 
pine quills, showing to what straits he had been driven 
for food. These rare trapped animals are but an 
indication of many a silent struggle that only the 



1 20 Wood Folk at School 

trees and stars are witnesses of ; and the trapper's 
deadfall, with its quick, sure blow, is only a merciful 
ending to what else had been a long, slow, painful 
trail, ending at last under a hemlock tip with the 
snow for a covering. 

Last summer, in a little glade in the wilderness, I 
found two skeletons, one of a porcupine, the other of 
a large lynx, lying side by side. In the latter three 
quills lay where the throat had once been ; the shaft of 
another stood firmly out of an empty eye orbit; a 
dozen more lay about in such a way that one could 
not tell by what path they had entered the body. It 
needed no great help of imagination to read the story 
here of a starving lynx, too famished to remember 
caution, and of a dinner that cost a life. 

Once also I saw a curious bit of animal education 
in connection with Unk Wunk. Two yourjg owls 
had begun hunting, under direction of the mother 
bird, along the foot of a ridge in the early twilight. 
From my canoe I saw one of the young birds swoop 
downward at something in the bushes on the shore. 
An instant later the big mother owl followed with a 
sharp, angry koo-hoo-koo-koo ! of warning. The young- 
ster dropped into the bushes ; but the mother fairly 
knocked him away from his game in her fierce rush, 
and led him away silently into the woods. I went 



Unk Wunk the Porcupine 121 

oyer on the instant, and found a young porcupine in 
the bushes where the owl had swooped, while two 
more were eating lily stems farther along the shore. 

Evidently Kookooskoos, who swoops by instinct at 
everything that moves, must be taught by wiser heads 
the wisdom of letting certain things severely alone. 

That he needs this lesson was clea-rly shown by an 
owl that my friend once shot at tw r ilight. There was a 
porcupine quill imbedded for nearly its entire length 
in his leg. Two more were slowly working their way 
into his body ; and the shaft of another projected from 
the corner of his mouth like a toothpick. Whether 
he were a young owl and untaught, or whether, driven 
by hunger, he had thrown counsel to the winds and 
swooped at Unk Wunk, will never be known. That 
he should attack so large an animal as the porcupine 
would seem to indicate that, like the lynx, hunger had 
probably driven him beyond all consideration for his 
mother's teaching. 

Unk Wunk, on his part, knows so very little that it 
may fairly be doubted whether he ever had the dis- 
cipline of the school of the woods. Whether he rolls 
himself into a chestnut bur by instinct, as the possum 
plays dead, or whether that is a matter of slow learning 
is yet to be discovered. Whether his dense stupidity, 
which disarms his enemies and brings him safe out of 



1 2 2 Wood Folk at School 

a hundred dangers where wits would fail, is, like the 
possum's blank idiocy, only a mask for the deepest 
wisdom; or whether he is quite as stupid as he acts 
and looks, is also a question. 

More and more I incline to the former possibility. 
He has learned unconsciously the strength of lying 
still. A thousand generations of fat and healthy por- 
cupines have taught him the folly of trouble and rush 
and worry in a world that somebody else has planned, 
and for which somebody else is plainly responsible. 
So he makes no effort and lives in profound peace. 
But this also leaves you with a question which 
may take you overseas to explore Hindu philosophy. 
Indeed, if you have one question when you meet Unk 
Wunk for the first time, you will have twenty after 
you have studied him for a season or two. His para- 
graph in the woods' journal begins and ends with a 
question mark, and a dash for what is left unsaid. 

The only indication of deliberate plan and effort 
that I have ever noted in Unk Wunk was in regard to 
teaching two young ones the simple art of swimming, 
— which porcupines, by the way, rarely use, and for 
which there seems to be no necessity. I was drifting 
along the shore in my canoe when I noticed a mother 
porcupine and two little ones, a prickly pair indeed, 
on a log that reached out into the lake. She had 



XJnk Wunk the Porcupine 



123 



brought them there to make her task of weaning them 
more easy by giving them a taste of lily buds. When 
they had gathered and eaten all the buds and stems 
that they could reach, she deliberately pushed both 
little ones into the water. When they attempted to 
scramble back she pushed them off again, and dropped 
in beside them and led them to a log farther down the 
shore, where there were more lily pads. 

The numerous hollow quills . floated them high in 
the water, like so many corks, and they paddled off 
w r ith less effort than any other young animals that I 
have ever seen in the water. But whether this were 
a swimming lesson, or a rude direction to shift and 
browse for themselves, is still a question. With the 
exception of one solitary old genius, who had an 
astonishing way of amusing himself and scaring all 
the other wood folk, this was the only plain bit of fore- 
thought and sweet reasonableness that I have ever 
found in a porcupine. 










£||A£ NEW sound, a purring rustle of leaves, 
stopped me instantly as I climbed the 
beech ridge, one late afternoon, to see 
what wood folk I might surprise feed- 
ing on the rich mast. Pr-r-r-r-usk, pr-r-r-r-usk ! 
a curious combination of the rustling of squirrels' 
feet and the soft, crackling purr of an eagle's 
wings, growing nearer, clearer every instant. I slipped 
quietly behind the nearest tree to watch and listen. 

Something was coming down the hill ; but what ? 
It was not an animal running. No animal that I 

knew, unless he had gone suddenly crazy, would ever 

124 



A Lazy Fellow's Fun 125 

make such a racket to tell everybody where he was. 
It was not squirrels playing, nor grouse scratching 
among the new-fallen leaves. Their alternate rus- 
tlings and silences are unmistakable. It was not a 
bear shaking down the ripe beechnuts — not heavy 
enough for that, yet too heavy for the feet of any 
prowler of the woods to make on his stealthy hunting. 
Pr-r-r-r-usk, swish ! thump ! Something struck the 
stem of a bush heavily and brought down a rustling 
shower of leaves; then out from under the low 
branches rolled something that I had never seen 
bef ore, — a heavy, grayish ball, as big as a half-bushel 
basket, so covered over with leaves that one could 
not tell what w 7 as inside. It was as if some one had 
covered a big kettle with glue and sent it rolling down 
the hill, picking up dead leaves as it went. So the 
queer thing tumbled past my feet, purring, crackling, 
growing bigger and more ragged every moment as it 
gathered up more leaves, till it reached the bottom 
of a sharp pitch and lay still. 

I stole after it cautiously. Suddenly it moved, 
unrolled itself. Then out of the ragged mass came a 
big porcupine. He shook himself, stretched, wobbled 
around a moment, as if his long roll had made him 
dizzy; then he meandered aimlessly along the foot of 
the ridge, his quills stuck full of dead leaves, looking 



126 Wood Folk at School 

big and strange enough to frighten anything that 
might meet him in the woods. 

Here was a new trick, a new problem concerning 
one of the stupidest of all the wood folk. When you 
meet a porcupine and bother him, he usually rolls 
himself into a huge pincushion with all its points out- 
ward, covers his face with his thorny tail, and lies still, 
knowing well that you cannot touch him anywhere 
without getting the worst of it. Now had he been 
bothered by some animal and rolled himself up where 
it was so steep that he lost his balance, and so tumbled 
unwillingly down the long hill; or, with his stomach 
full of sweet beechnuts, had he rolled down lazily to 
avoid the trouble of walking ; or is Unk Wunk brighter 
than he looks to discover the joy of roller coasting 
and the fun of feeling dizzy afterwards ? 

There was nothing on the hill above, no rustle or 
suggestion of any hunting animal to answer the 
question; so I followed Unk Wunk on his aimless 
wanderings along the foot of the ridge. 

A slight movement far ahead caught my eye, and I 
saw a hare gliding and dodging among the brown 
ferns. He came slowly in our direction, hopping and 
halting and wiggling his nose at every bush, till he 
heard our approach and rose on his hind legs to listen. 
He gave a great jump as Unk Wunk hove into sight, 



A Lazy Fellow's Fun 127 

covered all over with the dead leaves that his barbed 
quills had picked up on his way downhill, and lay 
quiet where he thought the ferns would hide him. 

The procession drew nearer. Moktaques, full of 
curiosity, lifted his head cautiously out of the ferns 
and sat up straight on his haunches again, his paws 
crossed, his eyes shining in fear and curiosity at the 
strange animal rustling along and taking the leaves 
with him. For a moment wonder held o, 
him as still as the stump beside 
him ; then he bolted into the bush 
in a series of high, scared jumps, 
and I heard him scurrying crazily 
in a half circle 
around us. r* -^~ ^ . 

Unk Wunk Ifl^ m0%0^ 

gave no heed to ; ■'■^f^ii L^^'' 

the interruption, jg^., I |V/1\-I^-Va\^ ,.. 

but vew-vawed ^W®& ^%,^ 
but yew yawed ^ ^ <^%^;^^ 

hither and yon t«V^^> V 
cupine that I have followed, /'^^!~$* 




after his stupid \'''ka* t /tj '^^$% 

nose. Like every other por- 



r"/A^^: 



he seemed to have nothing 

whatever to do, and nowhere .^Fsrfijft * v ™<]&'« 

in the wide world to go. He 






128 Wood Folk at School 

loafed along lazily, too full to eat any of the beechnuts 
that he nosed daintily out of the leaves. He tried a 
bit of bark here and there, only to spit it out again. 
Once he started up the hill ; but it was too steep for 
a lazy fellow with a full stomach. Again he tried it ; 
but it was not steep enough to roll down afterwards. 
Suddenly he turned and came back to see who it was 
that followed him about. 

I kept very quiet, and he brushed two or three 
times past my legs, eyeing me sleepily. Then he 
took to nosing a beechnut from under my foot, as 
if I were no more interesting than Alexander was 
to Diogenes. 

I had never made friends with a porcupine, — he is 
too briery a fellow for intimacies, — but now with a 
small stick I began to search him gently, wondering 
if, under all that armor of spears and brambles, I might 
not find a place where it would please him to be 
scratched. At the first touch he rolled himself 
together, all his spears sticking straight out on every 
side, like a huge chestnut bur. One could not touch 
him anywhere without being pierced by a dozen barbs. 
Gradually, however, as the stick touched him gently 
and searched out the itching spots under his armor, 
he unrolled himself and put his nose under my foot 
again. He did not want the beechnut ; but he did want 



A Lazy Fellow's Fun 129 

to nose it out. Unk Wunk is like a pig. He has 
very few things to do besides eating ; but when he does 
start to go anywhere or do anything he always does it. 
Then I bent down to touch him with my hand. 

That was a mistake. He felt the difference in the 
touch instantly. Also he smelled the salt in my hand, 
for a taste of which Unk Wunk will put aside all his 
laziness and walk a mile, if need be. He tried to 
grasp the hand, first with his. paws, then with his 
mouth; but I had too much fear of his great cutting 
teeth to let him succeed. Instead I touched him 
behind the ears, feeling my way gingerly through the 
thick tangle of spines, testing them cautiously to see 
how easily they would pull out. 

The quills were very loosely set in, and every arrow- 
headed barb was as sharp as a needle. Anything 
that pressed against them roughly would surely be 
pierced; the spines would pull out of the skin, and 
work their way rapidly into the unfortunate hand or 
paw or nose that touched them. Each spine was like 
a South Sea Islander's stvord, set for half its length 
with shark's teeth. Once in the flesh it would work 
its own way, unless pulled out with a firm hand spite 
of pain and terrible laceration. No wonder Unk Wunk 
has no fear or anxiety when he rolls himself into a ball, 
protected at every point by such terrible weapons. 



1 30 Wood Folk at School 

The hand moved very cautiously as it went down 
his side, within reach of Unk Wunk's one swift 
w r eapon. There were thousands of the spines, rough 
as a saw's edge, crossing each other in every direction, 
yet with every point outward. Unk Wunk was irri- 
tated, probably, because he could not have the salt he 
wanted. As the hand came within range, his tail 
snapped back like lightning. I was watching for the 
blow, but was not half quick enough. At the rustling 
snap, like the voice of a steel trap, I jerked my hand 
away. Two of his tail spines came with it ; and a 
dozen more were in my coat sleeve. I jumped away 
as he turned, and so escaped the quick double swing 
of his tail at my legs. Then he rolled into a chestnut 
bur again, and proclaimed mockingly at every point: 
" Touch me if you dare ! " 

I pulled the two quills with sharp jerks out of 
my hand, pushed all the others through my coat 
sleeve, and turned to Unk Wunk again, sucking my 
wounded hand, which pained me intensely. " All your 
own fault," I kept telling myself, to keep from whack- 
ing him across the nose, his one vulnerable point, with 
my stick. 

Unk Wunk, on his part, seemed to have forgotten 
the incident. He unrolled himself slowly and loafed 
along the foot of the ridge, his quills spreading and 



A Lazy Fellow 's Fun 1 3 1 

rustling as he went, as if there were not such a thing 
as an enemy or an inquisitive man in all the woods. 

He had an idea in his head by this time and was 
looking for something. As I followed close behind 
him, he would raise himself against a small tree, sur- 
vey it solemnly for a moment or two, and go on unsat- 
isfied. A breeze had come down from the mountain 
and was swaying all the tree-tops above him. He 
would look up steadily at the tossing branches, and 
then hurry on to survey the next little tree he met, 
with paws raised against the trunk and dull eyes 
following the motion overhead. 

At last he found what he wanted, — two tall saplings 
growing close together and rubbing each other as the 
wind swayed them. He climbed one of these clum- 
sily, higher and higher, till the slender top bent with 
his weight towards the other. Then he reached out 
to grasp the second top with his fore paws, hooked 
his hind claws firmly into the first, and lay there bind- 
ing the tree-tops together, while the wind rose and 
began to rock him in his strange cradle. 

Wider and wilder he swung, now stretched out 
thin, like a rubber string, his quills lying hard and flat 
against his sides as the tree-tops separated in the 
wind; now jammed up against himself as they came 
together again, pressing him into a flat ring with 



132 Wood Folk at School 

spines sticking straight out, like a chestnut bur that 
has been stepped upon. And there he swayed for a 
full hour, till it grew too dark to see him, stretching, 
contracting, stretching, contracting, as if he were an 
accordion and the wind were playing him. His only 
note, meanwhile, was an occasional squealing grunt of 
satisfaction after some particularly good stretch, or 
when the motion changed and both trees rocked 
together in a wide, wild, exhilarating swing. Now 
and then the note was answered, farther down the 
ridge, by another porcupine going to sleep in his lofty 
cradle. A storm was coming; and Unk Wunk, who 
is one of the wood's best barometers to foretell the 
changing weather, was crying it aloud where all might 
hear. 

So my question was answered unexpectedly. Unk 
Wunk was out for fun that afternoon, and had rolled 
down the hill for the joy of the swift motion and the 
dizzy feeling afterwards, as other wood folk do. I have 
watched young foxes, whose den was on a steep hill- 
side, rolling down one after the other, and sometimes 
varying the programme by having one cub roll as fast 
as he could, while another capered alongside, snapping 
and worrying him in his brain-muddling tumble. 

That is all very well for foxes. One expects to find 
such an idea in wise little heads. But who taught 



A Lazy Fellow's Fun 133 

Unk Wunk to roll downhill and stick his spines full 
of dry leaves to scare the wood folk? And when did 
he learn to use the tree-tops for his swing and the 
wind for his motive power ? 

Perhaps — since most of what the wood folk know 
is a matter of learning, not of instinct — his mother 
teaches him some things that we have never yet seen. 
If so, Unk Wunk has more in his sleepy, stupid head 
than we have given him credit for, and there is a very 
interesting lesson awaiting him who shall first find 
and enter the porcupine school. 




r^' 



tCpartridges 
roll call 



1WAS fishing, one September afternoon, in the 
pool at the foot of the lake, trying in twenty 
ways, as the dark evergreen shadows lengthened across 
the water, to beguile some wary old trout into taking 
my flies. They lived there, a score of them, in a dark 
well among the lily pads, where a cold spring bubbled 
up from the bottom; and their moods and humors 
were a perpetual source of worry or amusement, 
according to the humor of the fisherman himself. 

For days at a time they would lie in the deep shade 
of the lily pads in stupid or. sullen indifference. Then 
nothing tempted them. Flies, worms, crickets, red- 
fins, bumblebees, — all at the end of dainty hair 
leaders, were drawn with crinkling wavelets over 
their heads, or dropped gently beside them ; but they 
only swirled sullenly aside, grouty as King Ahab when 
he turned his face to the wall and would eat no bread. 

At such times scores of little fish swarmed out of 
the pads and ran riot in the pool. Chub, shiners, 

134 



The Partridges' Roll Call 135 

" punkin-seeds," perch, boiled up at your flies, ■ or 
chased each other in savage warfare through the for- 
bidden water, which seemed to intoxicate them by its 
cool freshness. You had only to swing your canoe 
up near the shadowy edge of the pool and draw your 
cast once across the open water to know whether or 
not you would eat trout for breakfast. If the small 
fish chased your flies, then you might as well go home 
or study nature ; you would certainly get no trout. 
But you could never tell when the change would 
come. With the smallest occasion sometimes — -a 
coolness in the air, the run of a cat's-paw breeze, a 
cloud shadow drifting over — a transformation would 
sweep over the speckled Ahabs lying deep under the 
lily pads. Some blind, unknown warning would run 
through the pool before ever a trout had changed his 
position. Looking over the side of your canoe you 
would see the little fish darting helter-skelter away 
among the pads, seeking safety in shallow w r ater, leav- 
ing the pool to its tyrant masters. Now is the time 
to begin casting ; your trout are ready to rise. 

A playful mood would often follow the testy humor. 
The plunge of a three-pound fish, the slap-dash of a 
dozen smaller ones would startle you into nervous 
casting. But again you might as well spare your 
efforts, which only served to acquaint the trout with 



1 36 Wood Folk at School 

the best frauds in your fly book. They would rush at 
Hackle or Coachman or Silver Doctor, swirl under it, 
jump over it, but never take it in. They played with 
floating leaves ; their wonderful eyes caught the shadow 
of a passing mosquito across the silver mirror of their 
roof, and their broad tails flung them up to intercept 
it; but they wanted nothing more than play or exer- 
cise, and they would not touch your flies. 

Once in a way there would come a day when your 
study and patience found their rich reward. The slish 
of a line, the flutter of a fly dropping softly on the 
farther edge of the pool — and then the shriek of your 
reel, buzzing up the quiet hillside, was answered by a 
loud snort, as the deer that lived there bounded away 
in alarm, calling her two fawns to follow. But you 
scarcely noticed; your head and hands were too full, 
trying to keep the big trout away from the lily pads, 
where you would certainly lose him with your light 
tackle. 

On the afternoon of which I write the trout 
were neither playful nor sullen. No more were they 
hungry. The first cast of my midget flies across the 
pool brought no answer. That was good ; the little 
fish had been ordered out, evidently. Larger flies 
followed ; but the big trout neither played with them 
nor let them alone. They followed cautiously, a foot 



The Partridges' Roll Call 137 

astern, to the near edge of the lily pads, till they saw 
me and swirled down again to their cool haunts. They 
were suspicious clearly ; and with the lower orders, 
as with men, the best rule in such a case is to act 
naturally, with more quietness than usual, and give 
them time to get over their suspicion. 

As I waited, my flies resting among the pads near 
the canoe, curious sounds came floating down the hill- 
side — Prut, prut, pr-r-r-rt f Whit-kwit? whit-kwit? 
Pr-r-rt, pr-r-rt ! Ooo-it, ooo-it ? Pr-r-reeee ! this last 
with a swift burr of wings. And the curious sounds, 
half questioning, half muffled in extreme caution, gave 
a fleeting impression of gliding in and out among the 
tangled underbrush. " A flock of partridges — ruffed 
grouse," I thought, and turned to listen more intently. 

The shadows had grown long, with a suggestion of 
coming night; and other ears than mine had heard 
the sounds with interest. A swifter shadow fell on 
the water, and I looked up quickly to see a big owl 
sail silently out from the opposite hill and perch on a 
blasted stub overlooking the pool. Kookooskoos had 
been sleeping in a dark spruce when the sounds waked 
him, and he started out instantly, not to hunt — it was 
still too bright — but to locate his game and follow 
silently to the roosting place, near which he would 
hide and wait till the twilight fell darkly. I could see 



138 Wood Folk at School 

it all in his attitude as he poised forward, swinging 
his round head to and fro, like a dog on an air trail, 
locating the flock accurately before he should take 
another flight. 

Up on the hillside the eager sounds had stopped for 
a moment, as if some strange sixth sense had warned 
the birds to be silent. The owl was puzzled; but I 
dared not move, because he was looking straight over 
me. Some faint sound, too faint for my ears, made 
him turn his head, and on the instant I reached for 
the tiny rifle lying before me in the canoe. Just as 
he spread his wings to investigate the new sound, the 
little rifle spoke, and he tumbled heavily to the shore. 

" One robber the less," I was thinking, when the 
canoe swung slightly on the water. There was a heavy 
plunge, a vicious rush of my unheeded line, and I seized 
my rod to find myself fast to a big trout, which had 
been watching my flies from his hiding among the lily 
pads till his suspicions were quieted, and the first slight 
movement brought him up with a rush. 

Ten minutes later he lay in my canoe, where I could 
see him plainly to my heart's content. I was waiting 
for the pool to grow quiet again, when a new sound 
came from the underbrush, a rapid plop, lop, lop, lop, 
lop, like the sound in a sunken bottle as water pours 
in and the air rushes out. 



The Partridges' Roll Call 139 

There was a brook near the sounds, a lazy little 
stream that had lost itself among the alders and for- 
gotten, all its music ; and my first thought was that 
some animal was standing in the water to drink, and 
waking the voice of the brook as the current rippled 
past his legs. The canoe glided over to find out what 
he was, when, in the midst of the sounds, came the 
unmistakable Whit-kwit? of partridges — and there 
they were, just vanishing glimpses of alert forms and 
keen eyes gliding among the tangled alder stems. 
When near the brook they had changed the soft, 
gossipy chatter, by which a flock holds itself together 
in the wild tangle of the burned lands, into a curious 
liquid sound, so like the gurgling of water by a mossy 
stone that it would have deceived me completely, had 
I not seen the birds. It was as if they tried to remind 
the little alder brook of the music it had lost far back 
among the hills. 

Now I had been straitly charged, on leaving camp, 
to bring back three partridges for our Sunday dinner. 
My own little flock had grown a bit tired of trout and 
canned foods; and a taste of young broiled grouse, 
which I had recently given them, had left them hungry 
for more. So I left the pool and my fishing rod, just 
as the trout began to rise, to glide into the alders with 
my pocket rifle. 



140 Wood Folk at School 

There were at least a dozen birds there, full-grown 
and strong of wing, that had not yet decided to scatter 
to the four winds, as had most of the coveys which 
one might meet on the burned lands. All summer 
long, while berries are plenty, the flocks hold together, 
finding ten pairs of quiet eyes much better protection 
against surprises than one frightened pair. Each flock 
is then under the absolute authority of the mother 
bird; and one who follows them gets some curious 
and intensely interesting glimpses of a partridge's edu- 
cation. If the mother bird is killed, by owl or hawk 
or weasel, the flock still holds together, while berries 
last, under the leadership of one of their own number, 
more bold or cunning than the others. But with the 
ripening autumn, when the birds have learned, or think 
they have learned, all the sights and sounds and dangers 
of the wilderness, the covey scatters; partly to cover 
a wider range in feeding as food grows scarcer ; partly 
in natural revolt at maternal authority, which no bird 
or animal likes to endure after he has once learned to 
take care of himself. 

I followed the flock rapidly, though cautiously, 
through an interminable tangle of alders that bor- 
dered the little stream, and learned some things about 
them ; though they gave me no chance whatever for a 
rifle shot. The mother was gone ; their leader was a 



The Partridges' Roll Call 141 

foxy bird, the smallest of the lot, who kept them mov- 
ing in dense cover, running, crouching, hiding, inquisi- 
tive about me and watching me, yet keeping themselves 
beyond reach of harm. All the while the leader talked 
to them, a curious language of cheepings and whis- 
tlings ; and they answered back with questions or sharp 
exclamations as my head appeared in sight for a 
moment. Where the cover was densest they waited 
till I was almost upon them before they whisked out 
of sight ; and where there was a bit of opening they 
whirred up noisily on strong wings, or sailed swiftly 
away from a fallen log with the noiseless flight that a 
grouse knows so well how to use when the occasion 
comes. 

Already the instinct to scatter was at work among 
them. During the day they had probably been feeding 
separately along the great hillside; but with length- 
ening shadows they came together again to face the 
wilderness night in the peace and security of the old 
companionship. And I had fortunately been quiet 
enough at my fishing to hear when the leader began 
to call them together and they had answered, here and 
there, from their feeding. 

I gave up following them after a while — they were 
too quick for me in the alder tangle — and came out 
of the swamp to the ridge. There I ran along a deer 



142 Wood Folk at School 

path and circled down ahead of them to a thicket of 
cedar, where I thought they might pass the night. 

Presently I heard them coming — Whit-kwit ? 
pr-r-r, pr-r-r, prut, prut ! — and saw five or six of 
them running rapidly. The little leader saw me at 
the same instant and dodged back out of sight. Most 
of his flock followed him ; but one bird, more inquisi- 
tive than the rest, jumped to a fallen log, drew himself 
up straight as a string, and eyed me steadily. The 
little rifle spoke at his head promptly; and I stowed 
him away comfortably, a fine plump bird, in a big 
pocket of my hunting shirt. 

At the report another partridge, questioning the 
unknown sound, flew to a thick spruce, pressed close 
against the trunk to hide himself, and stood listening 
intently. Whether he was waiting to hear the sound 
again, or was frightened and listening for the call of 
the leader, I could not tell. I fired at his head quickly, 
and saw him sail down against the hillside, with a loud 
thump and a flutter of feathers behind him to tell me 
that he was hard hit. 

I followed him up the hill, hearing an occasional 
flutter of wings to guide my feet, till the sounds van- 
ished into a great tangle of underbrush and fallen trees. 
I searched here ten minutes or more in vain, then lis- 
tened in the vast silence for a longer period ; but the 



The Partridges' Roll Call 143 

bird had hidden himself away in some hole or covert 
where an owl might pass by without finding him. 
Reluctantly I turned away toward the swamp. 

Close beside me was a fallen log ; on my right was 
another; and the two had fallen so as to make the 
sides of a great angle, their tops resting together 
against the hill. Between the two were several huge 
trees growing among the rocks and underbrush. I 
climbed upon one of these fallen trees and moved along 
it cautiously, some eight or ten feet above the ground, 
looking down searchingly for a stray brown feather to 
guide me to my lost partridge. 

Suddenly the log under my feet began to rock gently. 
I stopped in astonishment, looking for the cause of the 
strange teetering; but there was nothing on the log 
beside myself. After a moment I went on again, look- 
ing again for my partridge. Again the log rocked, 
heavily this time, almost throwing me off. Then I 
noticed that the tip of the other log, which lay balanced 
across a great rock, was under the tip of my log and 
was being pried up by something on the other end. 
Some animal was there, and it flashed upon me sud- 
denly that he was heavy enough to lift my weight with 
his stout lever. I stole along so as to look behind a 
great tree — and there on the other log, not twenty feet 
away, a big bear was standing, twisting himself uneasily, 



144 Wood Folk at School 

trying to decide whether to go on or go back on his 
unstable footing. 

He discovered me at the instant that my face 
appeared behind the tree. Such surprise, such wonder 
I have seldom seen in an animal's face. For a long 
moment he met my eyes steadily with his. Then he 
began to twist again, while the logs rocked up and 
down. Again he looked at the strange animal on the 
other log ; but the face behind the tree had not moved 
nor changed ; the eyes looked steadily into his. With 
a startled movement he plunged off into the under- 
brush, and but for a swift grip on a branch the sudden 
lurch would have sent me off backward among the 
rocks. As he jumped I heard a swift flutter of wings. 
I followed it timidly, not knowing where the bear was, 
and in a moment I had the second partridge stowed 
away comfortably with his brother in my hunting shirt. 

The rest of the flock had scattered widely by this 
time. I found one or two and followed them ; but they 
dodged away into the thick alders, where I could not 
find their heads quick enough with my rifle sight. After 
a vain, hasty shot or two I went back to my fishing. 

Woods and lake were soon quiet again. The trout 
had stopped rising, in one of their sudden moods. A 
vast silence brooded over the place, unbroken by any 
buzz of my noisy reel, and the twilight shadows were 




'THEY WOULD TURN THEIR HEADS 
AND LISTEN INTENTLY" 



The Partridges' Roll Call 145 

growing deeper and longer, when the soft, gliding, 
questioning chatter of partridges came floating out 
of the alders. The leader was there, in the thickest 
tangle — I had learned in an hour to recognize his 
peculiar Prut, prut — and from the hillside and the 
alder swamp and the big evergreens his scattered flock 
were answering ; here a kwit, and there a prut, and 
beyond a swift burr of wings, all drawing closer and 
closer together. 

I had still a third partridge to get for my own hun- 
gry flock ; so I stole swiftly back into the alder swamp. 
There I found a little game path and crept along it 
on hands and knees, drawing cautiously near to the 
leader's continued calling. 

In the midst of a thicket of low black alders, sur- 
rounded by a perfect hedge of bushes, I found him at 
last. He was on the lower end of a fallen log, gliding 
rapidly up and down, spreading wings and tail and 
budding ruff, as if he were drumming, and sending out 
his peculiar call at every pause. Above him, in a long 
line on the same log, five other partridges were sitting 
perfectly quiet, save now and then, when an answer 
came to the leader's call, they would turn their heads 
and listen intently till the underbrush parted cautiously 
and another bird flitted up beside them. Then another 
call, and from the distant hillside a faint, kwit-kwit and 



146 Wood Folk at School 

a rush of wings in answer, and another partridge would 
shoot in on swift pinions to pull himself up on the log 
beside his fellows. The line would open hospitably to 
let him in ; then the row grew quiet again, as the leader 
called, turning their heads from side to side for the 
faint answers. 

There were nine on the log at last. The calling 
grew louder and louder ; yet for several minutes now 
no answer came back. The flock grew uneasy ; the 
leader ran from his log into the brush and back again, 
calling loudly, while a low chatter, the first break in 
their strange silence, ran back and forth through the 
family on the log. There were others to come; but 
where were they, and why did they tarry? It was 
growing late ; already an owl had hooted, and the roost- 
ing place was still far away. Prut, prut, pr-r-r-reee ! 
called the leader, and the chatter ceased as the whole 
flock listened. 

I turned my head to the hillside to listen also for 
the laggards ; but there was no answer. Save for the 
cry of a low-flying loon and the snap of a twig — too 
sharp and heavy for little feet to make — the woods 
were all silent. As I turned to the log again, some- 
thing warm and heavy rested against my side. Then 
I knew ; and with the knowledge came a swift thrill of 
regret that made me feel guilty and out of place in the 



The Partridges' Roll Call 147 

silent woods. The leader was calling, the silent flock 
were waiting for two of their number who would never 
answer the call again. 

I lay scarcely ten yards from the log on which the 
sad little drama went on in the twilight shadows, while 
the great silence grew deep and deeper, as if the wilder- 
ness itself were in sympathy and ceased its cries to 
listen. Once, at the first glimpse of the group, I had 
raised my rifle and covered the head of the largest 
bird ; but curiosity to know what they were doing held 
me back. Now a deeper feeling had taken its place ; 
the rifle slid from my hand and lay unnoticed among 
the fallen leaves. 

Again the leader called. The flock drew itself up, 
like a row of gray-brown statues, every eye bright, every 
ear listening, till some vague sense of fear and danger 
drew them together ; and they huddled on the ground 
in a close group; all but the leader, who stood above 
them, counting them over and over, apparently, and 
anon sending his cry out into the darkening woods. 

I took one of the birds out of my pocket and began 
to smooth the rumpled brown feathers. How beautiful 
he was, how perfectly adapted in form and color for the 
wilderness in which he had lived ! And I had taken 
his life, the only thing he had. Its beauty and some- 
thing deeper, which is the sad mystery of all life, were 



148 Wood Folk at School 

gone forever. All summer long he had run about on 
glad little feet, delighting in nature's abundance, calling 
brightly to his fellows as they glided in and out in 
eager search through the lights and shadows. Fear on 
the one hand, absolute obedience to his mother on the 
other, had been the two great factors of his life. Between 
them he grew strong, keen, alert, knowing perfectly 
when to run and when to fly and when to crouch 
motionless, as danger passed close with blinded eyes. 
Then when his strength was perfect, and he glided 
alone through the wilderness coverts in watchful self- 
dependence — a moment's curiosity, a quick eager 
glance at the strange animal standing so still under the 
cedar, a flash, a noise ; and all was over. The call 
of the leader went searching, searching through the 
woods; but he gave no heed any more. 

The hand had grown suddenly very tender as it 
stroked his feathers. I had taken his life ; I must try 
to answer for him now. At the thought I raised my 
head and gave the clear whit-kwit of a running par- 
tridge. Instantly the leader answered ; the flock sprang 
to the log again and turned their heads in my direction 
to listen. Another call, and now the flock dropped to 
the ground and lay close, while the leader drew himself 
up straight on the log and became part of a dead stub 
beside him. 



The Partridges' Roll Call 149 

Something was wrong in my call ; the birds were 
suspicious, knowing not what danger had kept their 
fellows silent so long, and now threatened them out of 
the black alders. A moment's intent listening; then 
the leader stepped slowly down from his log and came 
towards me cautiously, halting, hiding, listening, glid- 
ing, swinging far out to one side and back again in 
stealthy advance, till he drew himself up abruptly at 
sight of my face peering out of the underbrush. For 
a long two minutes he never stirred so much as an eye- 
lid. Then he glided swiftly back, with a faint, puzzled, 
questioning kwit-kwit ? to where his flock were wait- 
ing. A low signal that I could barely hear, a swift 
movement — then the flock thundered away in scat- 
tered flight into the silent, friendly woods. 

Ten minutes later I was crouched in some thick 
underbrush looking up into a great spruce, when I 
could just make out the leader standing by an upright 
branch in sharp silhouette against the glowing west. 
I had followed his swift flight, and now lay listening 
again to his searching call as it went out through the 
twilight, calling his little flock to the roosting tree. 
From the swamp and the hillside and far down by 
the quiet lake they answered, faintly at first, then 
with clearer call and the whirr of swift wings as they 
came in. 



1 50 Wood Folk at School 

But already I had seen and heard enough ; too much, 
indeed, for my peace of mind. I crept away through 
the swamp, the eager calls following me even to my 
canoe; first a plaint, as if something were lacking to 
the placid lake and quiet woods and the soft beauty of 
twilight ; and then a faint question, always heard in the 
kwit of a partridge, as if only I could explain why two 
eager voices would never again answer to roll call 
when the shadows lengthened. 



^ ~j^y* j*s 










'?'/-' A . 








MQUENAWIS the Mighty is '^^^ 
lord of the woodlands. None H^Wwl 
other among the wood folk is '" *-C 
half so great as he ; none has senses so keen 
to detect a danger, nor powers so terrible to 
defend himself against it So he fears nothing, 
moving through the big woods like a master; and 
when you see him for the first time in the wilder- 
ness pushing his stately, silent way among the giant 
trees, or plunging like a great engine through under- 
brush and over windfalls, his nose up to try the wind, 
his broad antlers far back on his mighty shoulders, 
while the dead tree that opposes him cracks and crashes 

"5" 



152 Wood Folk at School 

down before his rush, and the alders beat a rattling, 
snapping tattoo on his branching horns, — when you 
see him thus, something within you rises up, like 
a soldier at salute, and says : " Milord the Moose ! " 
And though the rifle is in your hand, its deadly muzzle 
never rises from the trail. 

That great head with its massive crown is too big 
for any house. Hung stupidly on a wall, in a room full 
of bric-a-brac, as you usually see it, with its shriveled 
ears that were once living trumpets, its bulging eyes 
that were once so small and keen, and its huge muzzle 
stretched out of all proportion, it is but misplaced, 
misshapen ugliness. It has no more, and scarcely any 
higher, significance than a scalp on the pole of a sav- 
age's wigwam. Only in the wilderness, with the irre- 
sistible push of his twelve-hundred pound, force-packed 
body behind it, the crackling underbrush beneath, and 
the lofty spruce aisles towering overhead, can it give 
the tingling impression of magnificent power which 
belongs to Umquenawis the Mighty in his native wilds. 
There only is his head at home ; and only as you see 
it there, whether looking out in quiet majesty from a 
lonely point over a silent lake, or leading him in his 
terrific rush through the startled forest, will your heart 
ever jump and your nerves tingle in that swift thrill 
which stirs the sluggish blood to your very finger tips, 




'l / 



'PLUNGING LIKE A GREAT ENGINE THROUGH 
UNDERBRUSH AND OVER WINDFALLS" 



Umquenawis the Mighty 153 

and sends you quietly back to camp with your soul at 
peace — well satisfied to leave Umquenawis where he 
is, rather than pack him home to your admiring friends 
in a freight car. 

Though Umquenawis be lord of the wilderness, 
there are two things, and two things only, which he 
sometimes fears: the smell of man, and the spiteful 
crack of a rifle. For Milord the Moose has been 
hunted and has learned fear, which formerly he was 
stranger to. But when you go deep into the wilder- 
ness, where no hunter has ever gone, and where the 
bang of a rifle following the roar of a birch-bark 
trumpet has never broken the twilight stillness, there 
you may find him still, as he was before fear came; 
there he will come smashing down the mountain side 
at your call, and never circle to wind an enemy ; and 
there, when the mood is on him, he will send you 
scrambling up the nearest tree for your life, as a 
squirrel goes when the fox is after him. Once, in 
such a mood, I saw him charge a little wiry guide, 
who went up a spruce tree with his snowshoes on; 
and never a bear did the trick quicker, spite of the 
four-foot webs in which his feet were tangled. 

We were pushing upstream, late one afternoon, to 
the big lake at the headwaters of a wilderness river. 
Above the roar of rapids far behind, and the fret of 



154 Wood Folk at School 

the current near at hand, the rhythmical clunk, clunk 
of the poles and the lap, lap of my little canoe as she 
breasted the ripples were the only sounds that broke 
the forest stillness. We were silent, as men always are 
to whom the woods have spoken their deepest mes- 
sage, and to whom the next turn of the river may 
bring its thrill of unexpected things. 

Suddenly, as the bow of our canoe shot round a 
point, we ran plump upon a big cow moose crossing 
the river. At Simmo's grunt of surprise she stopped 
short and whirled to face us. And there she stood, 
one huge question mark from nose to tail, while the 
canoe edged in to the lee of a great rock and hung there 
quivering, with poles braced firmly on the bottom. 

We were already late for camping, and the lake was 
still far ahead. I gave the word at last, after a few 
minutes' silent watching, and the canoe shot upward. 
But the big moose, instead of making off into the 
woods, as a well-behaved moose ought to do, splashed 
straight toward us. Simmo, in the bow, gave a 
sweeping flourish of his pole, and we all yelled in 
unison; but the moose came on steadily, quietly, 
bound to find out what the queer thing was that had 
just come up river and broken the solemn stillness. 

" Bes' keep still ; big moose make-um trouble some- 
time," muttered Noel behind me; and we dropped 



Umquenawis the Mighty 155 

back silently into the lee of the friendly rock, to watch 
awhile longer and let the big creature do as she would. 

For ten minutes more we tried every kind of threat 
and persuasion to get the moose out of the way, end- 
ing at last by sending a bullet zipping into the water 
under her body; but beyond an angry stamp of the 
foot there was no response, and no disposition what- 
ever to give us the stream. Then I bethought me of 
a trick that I had discovered long before by accident. 
Dropping down to the nearest bank, I crept up behind 
the moose, hidden in the underbrush, and began to 
break twigs, softly at first, then more and more 
sharply, as if something were coming through the 
woods fearlessly. At the first suspicious crack the 
moose whirled, hesitated, started nervously across 
the stream, twitching her nostrils and wigwagging her 
big ears to find out what the crackle meant, and 
hurrying more and more as the sounds grated harshly 
upon her sensitive nerves. Next moment the river 
was clear and our canoe was breasting the rippling 
shallows, while the moose watched us curiously, half 
hidden in the alders. 

That is a good trick, for occasions. The animals 
all fear twig snapping. Only never try it at night 
with a bull, in the calling season, as I did once unin- 
tentionally. Then he is apt to mistake you for his 



156 Wood Folk at School 

tantalizing mate and come down on you like a tempest, 
giving you a big scare and a monkey scramble into 
the nearest tree before he is satisfied. 

Within the next hour I counted seven moose, old 
and young, from the canoe ; and when we ran ashore 
at twilight to the camping ground on the big lake, the 
tracks of an enormous bull were drawn sharply across 
our landing. The water was still trickling into them, 
showing that he had just vacated the spot at our 
approach. 

How do I know it was a bull? At this season the 
bulls travel constantly, and the points of the hoofs are 
worn to a clean, even curve. The cows, which have 
been living in deep retirement all summer, teaching 
their ungainly calves the sounds and smells and lessons 
of the woods, travel much less ; their hoofs, in conse- 
quence,- are generally long and pointed and overgrown. 

Two miles above our camp was a little brook, with 
an alder swale on one side and a dark, gloomy spruce 
tangle on the other — an ideal spot for a moose to 
keep her little school, I thought, when I discovered 
the place a few days later. There were tracks on the 
shore, plenty of them; and I knew I had only to 
watch long enough to see the mother and her calf, 
and to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of what no man has 
ever yet seen clearly; that is, a moose teaching her 



Umquenawis the Mighty 157 

little one how to hide his bulk; how to move noise- 
lessly and undiscovered through underbrush where, 
one would think, a fox must make his presence 
known; how to take a windfall on the run; how to 
breast down a young birch or maple tree and keep it 
under his body while he feeds on the top, — and a score 
of other things that every moose must know before he 
is fit to take care of himself in the big woods. 

I went there one afternoon in my canoe, grasped a 
few lily stems to hold the little craft steady, and 
snuggled down till only my head showed above the 
gunwales, so as to make canoe and man look as much 
like an old, wind-blown log as possible. It was get- 
ting toward the hour when I knew the cow would be 
hungry, but while it was yet too light to bring her 
little one to the open shore. After an hour's watch- 
ing, the cow came cautiously down the brook. She 
stopped short at sight of the floating log; watched 
it steadily for two or three minutes, wigwagging her 
ears ; then began to feed greedily on the lily pads that 
fringed all the shore. When she went back I followed, 
guided now by the crack of a twig, now by a swaying 
of brush tops, now by the flip of a nervous ear or the 
push of a huge dark body, keeping carefully to leeward 
all the time and making the big, unconscious creature 
guide me to where she had hidden her little one. 



158 Wood Folk at School 

Just above me, and a hundred yards in from the 
shore, a tree had fallen, its bushy top bending down 
two small spruces and making a low den, so dark that 
an owl could scarcely have seen what was inside. 
" That 's the spot," I told myself instantly ; but the 
mother passed well above it, without noting appar- 
ently how good a place it was. Fifty yards farther on 
she turned and circled back, below the spot, trying 
the wind with ears and nose as she came on straight 
towards me. 

" Aha ! the old moose trick," I thought, remem- 
bering how a hunted moose never lies down to rest 
without first circling back for a long distance, parallel 
to his trail and to leeward, to find out from a safe dis- 
tance whether anything is following him. When he 
lies down, at last, it will be close beside his trail, but 
hidden from it ; so that he hears or smells you as you 
go by. And when you reach the place, far ahead, 
where he turned back he will be miles away, plunging 
along down wind at a pace that makes your snowshoe 
swing like a baby's toddle. So you camp where he 
lay down, and pick up the trail in the morning. 

When the big cow turned and came striding back I 
knew that I should find her little one in the spruce 
den. But would she not find me, instead, and drive 
me out of her bailiwick ? You can never be sure what 



Umquenawis the Mighty • 159 

a moose will do if she finds you near her calf. Gener- 
ally they run — always, in fact — but sometimes they 
run your w r ay. And besides, I had been trying for years 
to see a mother moose teaching in her little school. 
Now I dropped on all fours and crawled away down 
wind, so as to get beyond ken of the mother's inquisi- 
tive nose if possible. 

She came on steadily, moving with astonishing 
silence through the tangle, till she stood where I had 
been a moment before, when . she started violently and 
threw her head up into the wind. Some scent of me 
was there, clinging faintly to the leaves and the moist 
earth. For a moment she stood like a rock, sifting 
the air in her nose ; then, finding nothing in the 
wind, she turned slowly in my direction to use her ears 
and eyes. I was lying very still behind a mossy log 
by this time, and she did not see me. Suddenly she 
turned and called, a low bleat. There was an instant 
stir in the spruce den, an answering bleat, and a moose 
calf scrambled out and ran straight to the mother. 
There was an unvoiced command to silence that no 
human sense could understand. The mother put her 
great head down to earth — " Smell of that ; mark that, 
and remember," she was saying in her own way; and 
the calf put his little head down beside hers, and I 
heard him sniff-sniffing the leaves. Then the mother 



160 Wood Folk at School 

swung her head savagely, bunted the little fellow out 
of his tracks, and drove him hurriedly ahead of her 
away from the place — " Get out, hurry, danger ! " was 
what she was saying now, and emphasizing her teach- 
ing with an occasional bunt from behind that lifted 
the calf over the hard places. So they went up the 
hill, the calf wondering and curious, yet ever reminded 
by the hard head at his flank that obedience was his 
business just now, the mother turning occasionally to 
sniff and listen, till they, vanished silently among the 
dark spruces. 

For a week or more I haunted the spot ; but though 
I saw the pair occasionally, in the woods or on the 
shore, I learned no more of Umquenawis' secrets. 
The moose schools are kept in far-away, shady dingles 
beyond reach of inquisitive eyes. Then, one morning 
at daylight as my canoe shot round a grassy point, 
there were the mother and her calf standing knee-deep 
among the lily pads. With a yell I drove the canoe 
straight at the little one. 

Now it takes a young moose or caribou a long time 
to learn that when sudden danger threatens he is to 
follow, not his own frightened head, but his mother's 
guiding tail. To young fawns this is practically the 
first thing taught by the mothers; but caribou are 
naturally stupid, or trustful, or burningly inquisitive, 



Umquenawis the Mighty 161 

according to their several dispositions ; and moose, 
with their great strength, are naturally fearless ; so that 
this needful lesson is slowly learned. If you surprise a 
mother moose or caribou with her young at close quar- 
ters and rush at them instantly, with a whoop or two to 
scatter their wits, the chances are that the mother will 
bolt into the brush, where safety lies, and the calf into 
the lake or along the shore, where the going is easiest. 

Several times I have caught young moose and cari- 
bou in this way, either swimming or stogged in the 
mud, and after turning them back to shore have 
watched the mother's cautious return and her treat- 
ment of the lost one. Once I paddled up beside a 
young bull moose, half grown, and grasping the coarse 
hair on his back had him tow me a hundred yards, to 
the next point, while I studied his expression. 

As my canoe shot up to the two moose they did 
exactly what I had expected; the mother bolted for 
the w 7 oods in mighty, floundering jumps, mud and 
water flying merrily about her ; while the calf darted 
along the shore, got caught in the lily pads, and with 
a despairing bleat settled down in the mud of a soft 
place, up to his back, and turned his head to see 
what I was. 

I ran my canoe ashore and approached the little 
fellow quietly, without hurry or excitement. Nose, 



1 62 Wood Folk, at School 

eyes, and ears questioned me; and his fear gradually 
changed to curiosity as he saw how harmless a thing 
had frightened him. He even tried to pull his awk- 
ward little legs out of the mud in my direction. Mean- 
while the big mother moose was thrashing around in 
the bushes in a terrible swither, calling her calf to come. 
I had almost reached the little fellow when the wind 
brought him the strong scent that he had learned in 
the woods a few days before, and he bleated sharply. 
There was an answering crash of brush, a pounding 
of hoofs that told one unmistakably to look out for his 
rear, and out of the bushes burst the mother, her eyes 
red as a wild pig's, and the long hair standing straight 
up along her back in a terrifying bristle. " Stand not 
upon the order of your mogging, but mog at once 
— eeeunh ! unh ! " she grunted ; and I turned otter 
instantly and took to the lake, diving as soon as the 
depth allowed and swimming under water to escape 
the old fury's attention. There was little need of fine 
tactics, however, as I found out when my head appeared 
again cautiously. Anything in the way of an uncere- 
monious retreat of the enemy satisfied her as perfectly 
as if she had been a Boer general. She went straight 
to her calf, thrust her great head under his belly, hiked 
him roughly out of the mud, and then butted him 
ahead of her into the bushes. 



Umquenawis the Mighty 163 

It was stern, rough discipline; but the youngster 
needed it to teach him the wisdom of the woods. 
From a distance I watched the quivering line of brush 
tops that marked their course, and then followed softly. 
When I found them again, in the twilight of the great 
spruces, the mother was licking the sides of her calf, lest 
he should grow cold too suddenly after his unwonted 
bath. All the fury and harshness were gone. Her 
great head lowered tenderly over the foolish, ungainly 
youngster, tonguing him, caressing him, drying and 
warming his poor sides, telling him in mother language 
that it was all right now, and that next time he would 
do better. 



There were other moose on the lake, all of them as 
uncertain as the big cow and her calf. Probably most 
of them had never seen a man before our arrival, and 
it kept one's expectations on tiptoe to know what they 
would do when they saw the strange two-legged 
creature for the first time. If a moose smelled me 
before I saw him, he would make off quietly into the 
woods, as all wild creatures do, and watch from a safe 
distance. But if I stumbled upon him unexpectedly, 
when the wind brought no warning to his nostrils, he 
was fearless, usually, and full of curiosity. 



1 64 Wood Folk at School 

The worst of them all was the big bull whose tracks 
were on the shore when we arrived. He was a morose, 
ugly old brute, living apart by himself, with his temper 
always on edge ready to bully anything that dared to 
cross his path or question his lordship. Whether he 
was an outcast, grown surly from living too much alone, 
or whether lie bore some old bullet wound to account 
for his hostility to man, I could never find out. Far 
down the river a hunter had been killed, ten years 
before, by a bull moose that he had wounded; and 
this may have been, as Noel declared, the same animal, 
cherishing his resentment with a memory as merciless 
as an Indian's. 

Before we had found this out I stumbled upon the 
big bull one afternoon, and came near paying the pen- 
alty of my ignorance. I had been still-fishing for togue 
(lake trout), and was on my way back to camp when, 
doubling a point, I ran plump upon a bull moose feed- 
ing among the lily pads. My approach had been per- 
fectly silent, — that is the only way to see things in 
the woods, — and he was quite unconscious that any- 
body but himself was near. 

He would plunge his great head under water till 
only his antler tips showed, and nose around on the 
bottom till he found a lily root. With a heave and a 
jerk he would drag it out, and stand chewing it 



Umquenawis the Mighty 165 

endwise with huge satisfaction, while the muddy water 
trickled down over his face. When it was all eaten he 
would grope under the lily pads for another root in 
the same way. 

Without thinking much of the possible risk, I began 
to steal towards him. While his head was under I 
would work the canoe along silently, simply " rolling 
the paddle " without lifting it from the water. At the 
first lift of his antlers I would stop and sit low in the 
canoe till he finished his juicy morsel and ducked for 
more. Then one could slip along easily again without 
being discovered. 

Two or three times this was repeated successfully, 
and still the big, unconscious brute, facing away from 
me fortunately, had no idea that he w r as being watched. 
His head went under water again — not so deep this 
time ; but I was too absorbed in the pretty game to 
notice that he had found the end of a root above the 
mud, and that his ears were out of water. A ripple 
from the bow of my canoe, or perhaps the faint brush 
of a lily leaf against the side, reached him. His head 
burst out of the pads unexpectedly; with a snort and 
a mighty flounder he whirled upon me ; and there he 
stood quivering, ears, eyes, nose, — everything about 
him reaching out to me and shooting questions at my 
head with an insistence that demanded instant answer. 



1 66 Wood Folk at School 

I kept quiet, though I was altogether too near the 
big brute for comfort, till an unfortunate breeze brushed 
the bow of my canoe still nearer to where he stood, 
threatening now instead of questioning. The mane on 
his back began to bristle, and I knew that I had but a 
small second in which to act. To get speed I swung 
the bow of the canoe outward, instead of backing away. 
The movement brought me a trifle nearer, yet gave me 
a chance to shoot by him. At the first sudden motion 
he leaped ; the red fire blazed out in his eyes, and he 
plunged straight at the canoe — one, two splashing 
jumps, and the huge velvet antlers were shaking just 
over me and the deadly fore foot was raised for a blow. 

I rolled over on the instant, startling the brute with 
a yell as I did so, and upsetting the canoe between us. 
There was a splintering crack behind me as I struck 
out for deep water. When I turned, at a safe distance, 
the bull had driven one sharp hoof through the bottom 
of the upturned canoe, and was now trying awkwardly 
to pull his leg out from the clinging cedar ribs. He 
seemed frightened at the queer, dumb thing that gripped 
his foot, for he grunted and jumped back and thrashed 
his big antlers in excitement; but he was getting 
madder every minute. 

To save the canoe from being pounded to pieces was 
now the only pressing business on hand. All other 



Umquenawis the Mighty 167 

considerations took to the winds in the thought that, 
if the bull's fury increased and he leaped upon the 
canoe, as he does when he means to kill, one jump 
would put the frail thing beyond repair, and we should 
have to face the dangerous river below in a spruce bark 
of our own building. I swam quickly to the shore and 
splashed and shouted and then ran away to attract the 
bull's attention. He came after me on the instant — 
unh ! unh ! chock, chockety-chock ! till he was close 
enough for discomfort, when I took to water again. 
The bull followed, deeper and deeper, till his sides were 
awash. The bottom was muddy and he trod gingerly ; 
but there was no fear of his swimming after me. He 
knows his limits, and they stop him shoulder deep. 

When he would follow no farther I swam to the 
canoe and tugged it out into deep water. Umquenawis 
stood staring now in astonishment at the sight of this 
queer man-fish. The red light died out of his eyes for 
the first time, and his ears wigwagged like flags in the 
wind. He made no effort to follow, but stood as he 
was, shoulder deep, staring, wondering, till I landed on 
the point above, whipped the canoe over, and spilled 
the water out of it. 

The paddle was still fast to its cord — as it should 
always be in trying experiments — and I tossed it into 
the canoe. The rattle roused Umquenawis from his 



1 68 Wood Folk at School 

wonder, as if he had heard the challenging clack of 
antlers on the alder stems. He floundered out in 
mighty jumps and came swinging along the shore, 
chocking and grunting fiercely. He had seen the man 
again and knew it was no fish — Unh ! unh ! eeeeeunh- 
unh / he grunted, with a twisting, jerky wriggle of his 
neck and shoulders at the last squeal, as if he felt me 
already beneath his hoofs. But before he reached the 
point I had stuffed my flannel shirt into the hole in the 
canoe and was safely afloat once more. He followed 
along the shore till he heard the sound of voices at 
camp, when he turned instantly and vanished in the 
woods. 

A few days later I saw the grumpy old brute again 
in a curious way. I was sweeping the lake with my 
field glasses when I saw what I thought was a pair of 
black ducks near a grassy shore. I paddled over, 
watching them keenly, till a root seemed to rise out of 
the water between them. Before I could get my glasses 
adjusted again they had disappeared. I dropped the 
glasses and paddled faster. They were diving, perhaps 
— an unusual thing for black ducks — and I might 
surprise them. There they were again ; and there 
again was the old root bobbing up unexpectedly between 
them. I whipped my glasses up — the mystery van- 
ished. The two ducks were the tips of Umquenawis' 



Umquenawis the Mighty 169 

big antlers; the root that rose between them was his 
head, as he came up to breathe. 

It was a close, sultry afternoon; the flies and mos- 
quitos were out in myriads, and Umquenawds had taken 
a philosophical way of getting rid of them. He was 
lying in the water, over a bed of mud, his body com- 
pletely submerged. As the swarm of flies that pestered 
him rose to his head he would sink it slowly, drowning 
them off. Through my glass, as I drew near, I could 
see a cloud of them hovering above the wavelets, or 
covering the exposed antlers. After a few moments 
there w r ould be a bubbling grumble down in the mud, 
as Umquenaw r is blew the air from his great lungs. His 
head would come up lazily to breathe among the pop- 
ping bubbles ; the flies would settle upon him like a 
cloud, and he would disappear again, blinking sleepily 
as he went down, with an air of immense satisfaction. 

It seemed too bad to disturb such comfort; but I 
wanted to know more about the surly old tyrant that 
had treated me with such scant courtesy; so I stole 
near him again, running up when his head disappeared, 
and lying quiet whenever he came up to breathe. He 
saw me at last when I was quite near, and leaped up 
with a terrible start. There was fear in his eyes this 
time. Here was the man-fish again, the creature that 
lived on land or water, and that could approach him so 



1 70 Wood Folk at School 

silently that the senses in which he had always trusted 
gave him no warning. He stared hard for a moment; 
then as the canoe glided rapidly straight towards him 
without fear or hesitation he waded out, stopping every 
instant to turn, and look, and try the wind, till he 
reached the fringe of woods beyond the grasses. There 
he thrust his nose up ahead of him, laid his big antlers 
back on his shoulders, and plowed straight through the 
tangle like a great engine, the alders snapping and 
crashing merrily about him as he went. 

In striking contrast was the next meeting. I was 
out at midnight, jacking, and passed close by a point 
where I had often seen the big bull's tracks. He was 
not there, and I closed the jack and went on along the 
shore, listening for any wood folk that might be abroad. 
When I came back, a few minutes later, there was a 
suspicious ripple on the point. I opened the jack, and 
there was Umquenawis, my big bull, standing out huge 
and magnificent against the shadowy background, his 
eyes glowing and flashing in fierce wonder at the sud- 
den brightness. He had passed along the.shore within 
twenty yards of me, through dense underbrush, — as I 
found out from his tracks next morning, — yet so 
silently did he push his great bulk through the trees, 
halting, listening, trying the ground at every step for 
telltale twigs ere he put his weight down, that I had 



Umquenawis the Mighty 171 

heard no sound, though I was listening intently in the 
dead hush that was on the lake. 

It may have been curiosity, or the uncomfortable 
sense of being watched and followed by the man-fish, 
who neither harmed nor feared him, that brought 
Umquenawis at last to our camp to investigate. One 
day Noel was washing some clothes of mine in the lake 
when some subtle warning made him turn his head. 
There stood the big bull, half hidden by the dwarf 
spruces, watching him intently. On the instant Noel 
left the duds where they were and bolted along the 
shore under the bushes, calling me loudly to come 
quick and bring my rifle. When we went back Umque- 
nawis had trodden the clothes into the mud, and 
vanished as silently as he came. 

The Indians grew insistent at this, telling me of the 
hunter that had been killed, claiming now, beyond a 
doubt, that this was the same bull, and urging me to 
kill the* ugly brute and rid the woods of a positive 
danger. But Umquenawis was already learning the 
fear of me, and I thought the lesson might be driven 
home before the summer was ended. So it was ; but 
before that time there was almost a tragedy. 

One day a timber cruiser — a lonely, silent man with 
the instincts of an animal for finding his way in the 
woods, whose business it is to go over timber lands to 



172 Wood Folk at School 

select the best sites for future cutting — came up to the 
lake and, not knowing that we were there, pitched by 
a spring a mile or two below us. I saw the smoke of 
his camp fire from the lake, where I was fishing, and 
wondered who had come into the great solitude. That 
was in the morning. Towards twilight I went down 
to bid the stranger welcome and to invite him to share 
our camp, if he would. I found him stiff and sore by 
his fire, eating raw-pork sandwiches with the appetite 
of a wolf. Almost at the same glance I saw the ground 
about a tree torn up, and the hoof marks of a big bull 
moose all about. — 

" Hello! friend, what's up?" I hailed him. 

" Got a rifle? " he demanded, with a rich Irish burr 
in his voice, paying no heed to my question. When I 
nodded he bolted for my canoe, grabbed my rifle, and 
ran away into the woods. 

" Queer Dick ! unbalanced, perhaps, by living too 
much alone in the woods," I thought, and -took to 
examining the torn ground and the bull's tracks to find 
out for myself what had happened. 

But there was no queerness in the frank, kindly face 
that met mine when the stranger came out of the bush 
a half hour later. — 

" Th' ould baste ! he 's had me perrched up in that 
three there, like a blackburrd, the last tin hours; an' 



JJmquenawis the Mighty 173 

niver a song in me throat or a bite in me stomach. 
He wint just as you came — I thought I could returrn 
his compliments wid a bullet," he said, apologetically, 
as he passed me back the rifle. 

Then, sitting by his fire, he told me his story. He 
had just lit his fire that morning, and was taking off 
his wet stockings to dry them, when there was' a fierce 
crashing and grunting behind him, and a bull moose 
charged out of the bushes like a fury. The cruiser 
jumped and dodged ; then, as the bull whirled again, 
he swung himself into a tree and sat there astride a 
limb, while the bull grunted and pushed and hammered 
the ground below with his sharp hoofs. All day long 
the moose had kept up the siege, now drawing off 
cunningly to hide in the bushes, now charging out 
savagely as the timber cruiser made effort to come 
down from his uncomfortable perch. 

A few minutes before my approach a curious thing 
happened ; which seems to indicate, as do many other 
things in the woods, that certain animals — perhaps all 
animals, including man — have at times an unknown 
sixth sense, for which there is no name and no expla- 
nation. I was still half a mile or more away, hidden 
by a point and paddling silently straight into the 
wind. No possible sight or sound or smell of me 
could have reached any known sense of any animal; 



i74 



Wood Folk at School 



yet the big brute began to grow uneasy. He left his 
stand under the tree and circled nervously around it, 
looking, listening, wigwagging his big ears, trying the 
wind at every step, and setting his hoofs down as if 
he trod on dynamite. Suddenly he turned and van- 
ished silently into the brush. McGarven, the timber 
cruiser, who had no idea that there was any man but 
himself on the lake, watched the bull with growing 
wonder and distrust, thinking him possessed of some 
evil demon. In his long life in the woods he had 
met hundreds of moose, but had never been molested 
•^ before. 

With the rifle at full cock and 
his heart hot w 7 ithin him, he 
had followed the trail, which 
stole away, cautiously at first, 
then in a long swinging stride 
straight towards the mountain. 
— "Oh, 'tis the 



x^' 



^/''-> 



/" J$J*<L 







m^ts^ 



^ quare baste he 

t^jp?' ^ is altogether! " 

s&Ste**^ he said as he fin- 



' -^ 



ished his story. 








:~a^« 



T was now near the calling 
m season,; and the nights 
J V grew keen with excite- 
ment. Now and then as I 
fished, or followed the brooks, or prowled through the 
woods in the late afternoon, the sudden bellow of a 
cow moose would break upon the stillness, so strange 
and uncertain in the thick coverts that I could rarely 
describe, much less imitate, the sound, or even tell the 
direction whence it had come. Under the dusk of 
the lake shore I would sometimes come upon a pair 
of the huge animals, the cow restless, wary, impatient, 
the bull now silent as a shadow, now ripping and 

175 



176 Wood Folk at School 

rasping the torn velvet from his great antlers among the 
alders, and now threatening and browbeating every 
living thing that crossed his trail, and even the 
unoffending bushes, in his testy humor. 

One night I went to the landing just below my tent 
with Simmo and tried for the first time the long call 
of the cow moose. He and Noel refused absolutely to 
give it, unless I should agree to shoot the ugly old 
bull at sight. Several times of late they had seen him 
near our camp, or had crossed his deep trail on the 
nearer shores, and they were growing superstitious as 
well as fearful. 

There was no answer to our calling for the space 
of an hour; silence brooded like a living, watchful 
thing over sleeping lake and forest, a silence that grew 
only deeper and deeper after the last echoes of the 
bark trumpet had rolled back on us from the distant 
mountain. Suddenly Simmo lowered the horn, just 
as he had raised it to his lips for a call. 

" Moose near ! " he whispered. 

" How do you know? " I breathed; for I had heard 
nothing. 

" Don' know how ; just know," he said sullenly. An 
Indian hates to be questioned, as a wild animal hates 
to be watched. As if in confirmation of his opinion, 
there was a startling crash and plunge across the little 



. At the Sound of the Trumpet 1 7 7 

bay over against us, and a bull moose leaped the bank 
into the lake within fifty yards of where we crouched 
on the shore. 

" Shoot ! shoot-um quick ! " cried Simmo ; and the 
fear of the old bull was in his voice. 

For answer there came a grunt from the moose — a 
ridiculously small, squeaking grunt, like the voice of a 
penny trumpet — as the huge creature swung rapidly 
along the shore in our direction. 

" Uh ! young bull, lil fool moose," whispered Simmo, 
and breathed a soft, questioning Whooowuh ? through 
the bark horn to bring him nearer. 

He came close to where we were hidden, then 
entered the woods and circled silently about our camp 
to get our wind. In the morning his tracks, within 
five feet of my rear tent pole, showed how little he 
cared for the dwelling of man. But though he circled 
back and forth for an hour, answering Simmo's low 
call with his ridiculous little grunt, he would not show 
himself again on the open shore. 

I stole up after a while to where I had heard the 
last twig snap under his hoofs. Simmo held me back, 
whispering of danger ; but there was a question in my 
head which has never received a satisfactory answer: 
Why does a bull come to a call anyway? It is held 
generally — and with truth, I think — that he comes 



1 78 Wood Folk at School 

because he thinks the sound is made by a cow moose. 
But how his keen ears could mistake such a palpable 
fraud is the greatest mystery in the woods. I have 
heard a score of hunters and Indians call, all differently, 
and have sometimes brought a bull into the open at 
the wail of my own bark trumpet; but I have never 
yet listened to a call that has any resemblance to the 
bellow of a cow moose as I have often heard it in the 
woods. Nor have I ever heard, or ever met anybody 
who has heard, a cow moose give forth any sound 
like the " long call " which is made by hunters, and 
which is used successfully to bring the bull from a 
distance. 

Others claim, and with some reason, that the bull, 
more fearless and careless at this season than at other 
times, comes merely to investigate the sound, as he 
and most other wild creatures do with every queer 
or unknown thing they hear. The Alaskan Indians 
stretch a skin into a kind of tambourine and beat it 
with a club to call a bull ; which sound, however, might 
not be unlike one of the many peculiar bellows that I 
have heard from cow moose in the wilderness. And I 
have twice known bulls to come to the chuck of an ax 
on a block ; which sound, at a distance, has some resem- 
blance to the peculiar chock-chocking that the bulls use 
to call their mates from a distance. 



At the Sound of the Trumpet 179 

From any point of view the thing has contradictions 
enough to make one wary of a too positive opinion. 
Here at hand was a " HI fool moose " who knew no 
fear, and who might, therefore, enlighten me on the 
obscure subject. I told Simmo to keep on calling 
softly at intervals while I crept up into the woods to 
watch the effect 

It was all as dark as a pocket beyond the open shore. 
One had to feel his way along, and imitate the moose 
himself in putting his feet down. Spite of my precau- 
tion a bush whispered ; a twig cracked. Instantly there 
was a swift answering rustle ahead as the bull glided 
towards me. He had heard the faint message and was 
coming to see if it were not his tantalizing mate, ready 
to whack her soundly, according to his wont, for caus- 
ing him so much worry, and to beat her out ahead of 
him to the open where he could watch her closely and 
prevent any more of her hiding tricks. 

I stood motionless behind a tree, grasping a branch 
above, ready to swing up out of reach when the bull 
charged. A vague black hulk thrust itself out of the 
dark woods, close in front of me, and stood still. 
Against the faint light, which showed from the lake 
through the fringe of trees, the great head and antlers 
stood out like an upturned root; but I had never 
known that a living creature stood there were it not 



180 Wood Folk at School 

for a soft, clucking rumble that the bull kept going in 
his throat, — a ponderous kind of love note, intended, 
no doubt, to let his elusive mate know that he was near. 

He took another step in my direction, brushing the 
leaves softly, a low, whining grunt telling of his impa- 
tience. Two more steps and he must have discovered 
me, when fortunately an appealing gurgle and a meas- 
ured plop, plop, plop — like the feet of a moose falling 
in shallow water — sounded from the shore below, 
where Simmo was concealed. Instantly the bull turned 
and glided away, a shadow among the shadows. A few 
minutes later I heard him running off in the direction 
whence he had first come. 

After that the twilight always found him near our 
camp. He was convinced that there was a mate hid- 
ing somewhere near, and he was bound to find her. 
We had only to call a few times from our canoe, or 
from the shore, and presently we would hear him com- 
ing, blowing his penny trumpet, and at last see him 
break out upon the shore with a crashing plunge to 
waken all the echoes. Then, one night as we lay 
alongside a great rock in deep shadow, watching the 
puzzled young bull as he ranged along the shore in the 
moonlight, Simmo grunted softly to call him nearer. 
At the sound a larger bull, that we had not suspected, 
leaped out of the bushes close beside us with a sudden 



At the Sound of the Trumpet 1 8 1 

terrifying plunge and splashed straight at the canoe. 
Only the quickest kind of work saved us. Simmo 
swung the bow off, with a startled grunt of his own, 
and I paddled away; while the bull, mistaking us in 
the dim light for the exasperating cow that had been 
calling and hiding herself for a week, followed after us 
into deep water. 

There was no doubt whatever that this moose, at 
least, had come to what he thought was the call of a 
mate. Moonlight is deceptive beyond a few feet; so 
when the low grunt sounded in the shadow 7 of the 
great rock he was sure he had found the coy creature 
at last, and broke out of his concealment resolved to 
keep her in sight and not to let her get aw r ay again. 
That is why he swam after us. Had he been investi- 
gating some new 7 sound or possible danger, he w r ould 
never have left the land, where alone his great power 
and his w r onderful senses have full play. In the water 
he is harmless, as most other wild creatures are. 

I paddled cautiously just ahead of him, so near that, 
looking over my shoulder, I could see the flash of his 
eye and the waves crinkling aw r ay before the push of 
his great nose. After a short swim he grew T suspicious 
of the queer thing that kept just so far ahead, whether 
he swam fast or slow, and turned in towards the shore 
whining his impatience. I followed slowly, letting him 



1 82 Wood Folk at School 

get some distance ahead, and just as his feet struck 
bottom whispered to Simmo for his softest call. At 
the sound the bull whirled and plunged after us again 
recklessly, and I led him across to where the younger 
bull was still ranging up and down the shore, calling 
imploringly to his phantom mate. 

I expected a battle when the two rivals should meet ; 
but they paid little attention to each other. The com- 
mon misfortune, or the common misery, seemed to kill 
the fierce natural jealousy whose fury I had more than 
once been witness of. They had lost all fear by this 
time ; they ranged up and down the shore, or smashed 
recklessly through the swamps, as the elusive smells and 
echoes called them hither and yon in their frantic search. 

Far up on the mountain side the sharp, challenging 
grunt of a master bull broke out of the startled woods 
in one of the lulls of our exciting play. Simmo heard 
and turned in the bow to whisper excitedly : " Nother 
bull ! Fetch-um OP Devi this time, sartin." Raising 
his horn he gave the long, rolling bellow of a cow 
moose. A fiercer trumpet call from the mountain side 
answered ; then the sound was lost in the crash-crash 
of the first two bulls, as they broke out upon the shore 
on opposite sides of the canoe. 

We gave little heed now to the nearer play; our 
whole attention was fixed on a hoarse, grunting roar 




'A MIGHTY SPRING OF HIS CROUCHING 
HAUNCHES FINISHED THE WORK" 



At the Sound of the Trumpet 183 

— Uh, uh, uh ! eeeyuh ! r-r-r-runh-unh ! — with a rat- 
tling, snapping crash of underbrush for an accompani- 
ment. The younger bull heard it; listened for a moment, 
like a great black statue under the moonlight; then 
he glided away into the shadows under the bank. The 
larger bull heard it, threw up his great head defiantly, 
and came swinging along the shore, hurling a savage 
challenge back on the echoing woods at every stride. 

There was an ominous silence up on the ridge where, 
a moment before, all was fierce commotion. Simmo 
was silent too; the uproar had been appalling, with 
the sleeping lake below us, and the vast forest, where 
silence dwells at home, stretching up and away on 
every hand to the sky line. But the spirit of mischief 
was tingling all over me as I seized the horn and gave 
the low appealing grunt that a cow would have uttered 
under the same circumstances. Like a shot the answer 
was hurled back, and down came the great bull — 
smash, crack, r-r-runh ! till he burst like a tempest 
out on the open shore, where the second bull with a 
challenging roar leaped to meet him. 

Simmo was begging me to shoot, shoot, telling me 
excitedly that " Ol' Dev'l," as he called him, would be 
more dangerous now than ever, if I let him get away ; 
but I only drove the canoe in closer to the splashing, 
grunting uproar among the shadows under the bank. 



1 84 Wood Folk at School 

There was a terrific duel under way when I swung 
the canoe alongside a moment later. The bulls 
crashed together with a shock to break their heads. 
Mud and water flew over them ; their great antlers 
clashed and rang like metal blades as they pushed and 
tugged, grunting like demons in the fierce struggle. 
But the contest was too one-sided to last long. The 
big bull that had almost killed me, but in whom I 
now found myself taking an almost savage pride, had 
smashed down from the mountain in a frightful rage, 
and with a power that nothing could resist. With a 
quick lunge he locked antlers in the grip he wanted ; a 
twist of his massive neck and shoulders forced the 
opposing head aside, and a mighty spring of his 
crouching haunches finished the work. The second 
moose went over with a plunge like a bolt-struck pine. 
As he rolled up to his feet again the savage old bull 
jumped for him and drove the brow antlers into his 
flanks. The next moment both bulls had crashed 
away into the woods, one swinging off in giant strides 
through the crackling underbrush for his life, the other 
close behind, charging like a battering-ram into his 
enemy's rear, grunting like a huge wild boar in his rage 
and exultation. So the chase vanished over the ridge 
into the valley beyond ; and silence stole back, like a 
Chinese empress, into her disturbed dominions. 



At the Sound of the Trumpet 185 

From behind a great windfall on the point above, 
where he had evidently been watching the battle, the 
first young bull stole out, and came halting and listen- 
ing along the shore to the scene of the conflict. " To 
the discreet belong the spoils " was written in every 
timorous step and stealthy movement. A low grunt 
from my horn reassured him ; he grew confident. 
Now he would find the phantom mate that had occa- 
sioned so much trouble, and run away with her before 
the conqueror should return from his chase. He 
swung along rapidly, rumbling the low call in his 
throat. Then up on the ridge sounded again the 
crackle of brush and the roar of a challenge. Rage 
had not made the victor to forget ; indeed, here he was, 
coming back swiftly for his reward. On the instant all 
confidence vanished from the young bull's attitude. 
He slipped away into the woods. There was no 
sound ; scarcely a definite motion. A shadow seemed 
to glide away into the darker shadows. The under- 
brush closed softly behind it, and he was gone. 

Next morning at daybreak I found my old bull on the 
shore, a mile below ; and with him was the great cow 
that had hunted me away from her little one. The 
youngster was well grown and sturdy now, but still 
he followed his mother obediently; and the big bull 
had taken them both under his protection. I left 



i86 



Wood Folk at School 



them there undisturbed, with a thought of the mighty 
offspring that shall some day come smashing down 
from the mountain to delight the heart of camper or 
hunter and set. his nerves a-tingle, when the lake shall 
again be visited and the roar of a bark trumpet roll 
f '-\ over the sleeping lake and the startled 
;/yf'lWl' woods. Let them kill who will. I 

^nawis the Mighty 

he was before fear 

came, and am satisfied. 



tylwi have seen Umc l ue, 




GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES 

Cheokhes, che-ok-hes' ' , the mink. 

Cheplahgan, cheft-ldh'gan, the bald eagle. 

Ch'geegee-lokh-sis, ch ''gee-gee' lock-sis, the chickadee. 

Chigwooltz, chig-wooltz', the bullfrog. 

C16te Scarpe, a legendary hero, like Hiawatha, of the Northern Indians. 

Pronounced variously, Clote Scarpe, Groscap, Gluscap, etc. 
Commoosie, com-moo-sie' ', a little shelter, or hut, of boughs and bark. 
Deedeeaskh, dee-dee' ask, the blue jay. 
Eleemos, el-ee'mos, the fox. 
Hawahak, hd-wd-hak' , the hawk. 

Hukweem, hnk-weem' ', the great northern diver, or loon. 
Ismaques, iss-7nd-ques' , the fishhawk. 
Kagax, kag'ax, the weasel. 
Kakagos, kd-kdgos', the raven. 
K'dunk, k'dunk', the toad. 
Keeokuskh, kee-o-kusk' ', the muskrat. 
Keeonekh, kee'o-nek, the otter. 
Killooleet, kil'loo-leet, the white-throated sparrow. 
Kookooskoos, koo-koo-skoos' ', the great horned owl. 
Koskomenos, kos'kom-e-nos', the kingfisher. 
Kupkawis, cup-ka'wis, the barred owl. 
Kwaseekho, kwd-seek'ho, the sheldrake. 
Lhoks, locks, the panther. 
Malsun, mal'sun, the wolf. 
Meeko, meek'o, the red squirrel. 
Megaleep, meg'd-leep, the caribou. 

Milicete, mil'i-cete, the name of an Indian tribe ; written also Malicete. 
Mitches, mit'ches, the birch partridge, or ruffed grouse. 
Moktaques, mok-td'ques, the hare. 

187 



1 88 Wood Folk at School 

Mooween, moo-ween', the black bear. 

Musquash, mus'qudsh, the muskrat. 

Nemox, nan' ox, the fisher. 

Pekquam, pek-wam', the fisher. 

Quoskh, quoskh, the blue heron. 

Seksagadagee, sek'sd-gd-dd'gee, the Canada grouse, or spruce partridge. 

Skooktum, shook' turn, the trout. 

Tookhees, tok'hees, the wood mouse. 

Umquenawis, um-qiie-tid'wis, the moose. 

Unk Wunk, unk' wunk, the porcupine. 

Upweekis, up-week'iss, the Canada lynx. 




minim ,-.,.•. 






lSSli'llii!S""l? , '**i *^ f * ^l^g ig ^Btii» ti»».nKM^Miam\ m i)u . M . ... ^wueumi*.™ 



*& i 



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LONG'S WOOD FOLK SERIES 

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■M 



■■n 




